Digital copyrights, fair use, etc.

     In ETEC this week, we studied copyrights as pertaining to digital things. I can't say I was entirely aware of fair use, even though I had some vague idea of it. It's a little more important to me now that I am studying to be a teacher! What a relief to understand it a little better. A lot of the information seemed to be double-talk. It seemed like the authors of the articles were trying to simplify things, but it was my understanding that the rules are still developing, and that kind of complicates things!But I previously only had a nebulous notion of how a copyright worked, and how it works with digital information is quite another thing!
     Looking at cyberbullying was interesting. I am pretty aware of all of that, having a teenager in the house. Besides, my two adult children aren't that old, and dealing with internet use has been a big part of my household for awhile now. It's scary to think that it gets so out of hand! Some kids use that as an escape from what they deal with at school, and it's downheartening to see how it can be used against them. I don't think a lot of parents monitor their kids computer usage very closely, though. At least, I think they are under the impression that they are, but a lot of these kids are so much more adept at it than my generation...and they know how to hide it when they want to.
     Netiquette is really just common sense and politeness in digital format. Being online requires that kind of behavior just as if a person was actually in the room with you.
     This was very informative. I saved some of the sites about copyrights so I can refer to them later on when I really need them! Oh! And I thought that site about cyberbullying was a great site to use with kids!

MAPping in ETEC

     Well, I have to say that this week in ETEC has been an enlightening one! Before I started this lesson, I thought I was fairly competent out there on the internet and surfing the web. That Information Literacy Quiz gave me a Moderately Savvy score, but as far as I was concerned, it showed me just how much I DIDN'T know! I searched like a lot of people seem to search: get on google.com or yahoo.com and see what you get. Since I've been in college, I have been learning to use the school's library sites and databases. That has added to my searching repertoire, and I knew that .org and .edu and such were more credible, but if I worried about whether something was true or fake, I just did another search asking that.
     Now that I've gone through all these MAPping activities, I am kind of relieved to know that there are places to go to learn more about a particular website -- places like easywhois.com and altavista.com, and the Wayback Machine at archive.org is amazing! I don't think I will change just light searching, but if I am concerned about the truthfulness of a site, or if I am going to base an argument on proof I have found online, or once I am teaching, if I want to give a site to my students, then I will definitely search it out first.
     Everything I have learned in this lesson will absolutely have a positive effect on my teaching AND my future students. It's just too easy to give a wrong website these days. I certainly don't want to be guilty of giving out false information to students or sending them to an inappropriate site that is similar to what I am intending. If I have tools like these at my disposal, I can doublecheck online when I am preparing for my class and be confident in the information that I am opening up to them. And since this has been a concern to me in putting together papers of my own as well as a concern for future teaching, this is a weight lifted! I feel much more confidant in filtering and finding the information that I need.

ETEC is getting me going....

Hi! I'm Lei Anne.  Here I am, 48 years old, and finally learning about blogging!

My family is the most important aspect of my life. I am a wife, mother, and student. My husband is wonderful and supportive. My two oldest children are adults and my youngest just got his driver's license! Loki, my Boxer dog, thinks he is one of my children. I finally go to church because I want to. Gardening is one of my hobbies -- I love roses and hydrangeas and I'm learning about Rose of Sharon trees. A good murder mystery or Words With Friends is how I like to relax. Movies also get top-rated billing from me on the good-ways-to-relax list.  And, after all these years, I am hoping to finish my degree and get my teacher certification...and that is where most of my time goes these days!

My ETEC class is really getting the ball rolling and teaching me about some technology that I was not previously that familiar with...like blogging! It's my belief that technology should be thoroughly integrated into classroom learning these days. Present-day students spend so much of their time communicating and socializing technologically that it is really more of a requirement of a successful teacher.  How can you get a child's attention when you can't even speak their language?? My youngest son texts, plays video games, emails, skypes, chats, researches, and designs online. His textbooks are being transferred to a digital format and he reads for fun on his iPad.  Many forms of technology are necessary for successful teaching today.

I am not yet familiar with which technologies have been successfully adapted to the classroom, but that is part of what I hope to learn through this class. It's one thing to do some of these things personally, but I imagine it is a little different when it is in a classroom setting and involves twenty to thirty students. This is the sort of thing I am expecting to learn in this class so that I can integrate it into my teaching methods when I am in the classroom.