Copyright and Fair Use

To be completely honest I had no idea copyright and fair use were both such serious and intricate things! I have never taken the time to really look into copyright issues or rules regarding copyright and fair use. The most I have done would be signing off on university or any other policies stating that I did not copyright when turning in an assignment, paper, or research that I had done. However, I have to wonder if I had followed the legality behind copyright and fair use as closely as I thought I was. After reading the articles and taking the quiz, it is quite clear I still have much to learn! All of the information seemed overwhelming because I was trying to relate it to my current learning and future teaching while reading. I feel like it went right over my head at times and to really truly understand it I will have to do more research. As a future teacher I feel I owe it not only to myself but to my students to research and understand how it will affect our work and our classroom. I do appreciate that there are such laws out there, as people have the right to have their own work protected. Anyone who creates a piece of work, whether it be audio or visual or research based materials, their work should be credited to them and only them. If anyone wants to use their work, the work should be used with the permission given and the credit because it does belong to them.

Online Safety, to me, is protecting yourself (and in the future your students) from potentially harmful people or material that they may encounter online. In this class,and others as well, we use all kinds of online websites and networking tools. In our day to day lives we more than likely use even more. Whether we are emailing, blogging, or networking (facebook, etc.), we are opening ourselves up to other people both good and bad. Knowing that the information we display will not land in the wrong hands is vital to keeping us safe. Using safety tools and privacy settings is a good start, and knowing who you are communicating with can take it a step further. Putting too much personal information online is never a good thing. While as adults we tend to be aware of those around us and ways of protecting ourselves, we can never be too careful. Unfortunately, our students are not as cautious most of the time. Teaching them about "online" stranger danger is a great preventative precaution to teach them to take. Teaching them about what is acceptable to post and make public is another. When students are in our classrooms we can monitor their use and what they are doing, but we must also teach them to be cautious themselves because they will not always be protected by their teachers and their classrooms.

Before this weeks assignment I honestly wouldn't have given copyright and fair use much thought. I thought that by citing my work used, I was following the copyright guidelines set out legally for me. I am glad that I was given the oportunity to learn more about all of this and that my eyes were open to it. As a future educator I will be daily implementing technology into my classroom, and perhaps the work of others. Whether I am showing an online site, reading and excerpt or article, or showing my students some handy online tools I know I will be using the work of others somehow. Not only will I learn how to do that correctly and legally, I will also make the effort to use my own work as much as possible!