Copyright Laws

Copyright laws are very interesting to examine and have a great array of information that people may not know about. After reading some articles and viewing our in class powerpoint I realized I learned so much more on copyrighting.

I feel like the law that surprised me the most was reading the article online that dealt with material that can not be protected by copyright. I had no idea that certain things can and can not be copyright. I learned that works from a public domain, works from federal government employees, short phrases or slogans, and ideas, methods, or procedures are things that can not be copyright or protected by copyright laws. This was surprising to me because I thought anything regardless of it being a slogan or an idea could be protected by these laws.

I believe it is the responsibility as a teacher to teach students the respect for copyright. Students need to learn at a young age what it is, because I am a college student and I did not realize how much more information is out there on copyright laws. Teachers need to pay attention to these laws because teaching these morals is something a student will need in life. People take copyrighting seriously and if a student plagiarizes or does not cite something in an assignment there are definently consequences. When I am a teacher I will be sure to teach copyright ethics in my class. I will be sure do model these laws in a number of ways. First, I think I would educate the students with a brief powerpoint like the one in class; it gave me a lot of useful knowledge I did not know. I will make sure to tell them when they do assignments such a papers or powerpoint slides with pictures and information they need to put from who and where they go that information from. It is morally right to educate them on "asking permission" before taking or borrowing something and how copyright relates to that. These are just a few ways of how I will educate students about copyright laws in my class.

Interactive Whiteboards

Interactive whiteboards are starting to show up more commonly in classrooms now. I feel that these smart boards give students and teachers more of a positive feeling on teaching and technology. I think that interactive smart boards can enhance teaching and learning in many ways. For the student the interactive whiteboard will engage them in the lesson more. Students who can be active and enjoy a lesson rather than sitting and be lectured are more likely to participate and receive better grades on something. Having the students participate and come up to the board to do stuff is a great way for them to interact more. For teachers, I feel the interactive whiteboard allows them to use more technology in the classroom to advance their technology use. Again, students love the interactions with technology instead of a boring lecture. With teachers using technology and getting more involved they'll be able to learn better teaching techniques for their lessons.

The technology we used was not too difficult. It was a matter of learning what most of the program does, then just playing around with different settings. It became really easy once you were able to manage the basic tools needed to create slides on a smart board. There are many pros to having a smart board that include, being able to use more technology, getting students more involved, the teacher them self learning more about technology, and so on. This technological tool allows for greater improvements on lessons by teachers and work by students. However, with everything in life there are a few cons. Unfortunately, with technology sometimes it doesn't always work. Teachers may even get too fancy with their work and the students get too distracted from the real lesson. Another con is the maintenance and care for a white board.

A lesson that I have previously written is about math and geometric shapes. I could use the smart board in many ways in this lesson, such as having interactive slides. I can have students do a worksheet telling me the names of different figures and I can have a slide that shows the figures and students can come up to the board and write the name of figure below it that they wrote on their paper. Others things can include drawing different figures that may have been talked about in the chapter. There are many more ways, but I feel I could have added such activities into my lesson to make it better.

There are a variety of ways to use a smart board, and I feel like having one in the classroom is very effective for both the students and the teachers in many ways.