Blog Journal #3

 

Copyright secures the legal right of a creator to own their work, so that it cannot be reproduced by unapproved parties. Fair Use is a legal doctrine that allows excerpts of copyrighted material to be used in very specific contexts. One of these contexts is in the classroom, for educational, nonprofit purposes, as long as the regulations on how much of the work can be reproduced are followed. As a teacher, I would only use property in the classroom that I have the legal right to use, and I would be open with my students about this, so they could understand how copyright and fair use work as well.

Academic dishonesty is a huge hurdle with online learning, since technology can make it much easier for students to plagiarize works or cheat on tests. There is technology which detects plagiarism in written works, and tests or quizzes can be remotely proctored to prevent cheating. Cyberbullying is also on the rise with the implementation of technology in the classroom. As a teacher, I plan on educating my students on how to protect themselves online, and making it clear to them that I am a safe person to come to if they ever feel they need help with online harassment from other students.

I really enjoyed the Newsletter Design assignment and I feel that it has given me a better grasp of how to use Microsoft Word. I was not very experienced with formatting text, outside of the most basic functions which I am accustomed to. I didn’t have much experience with using columns, and though I had trouble figuring out at first, I feel I have a better grasp of it now. Trying to make my newsletter aesthetically pleasing gave me a better idea of how to correctly format images on Microsoft Word so that they stay where I want them to stay and do not obstruct my text.