Copyright Guidelines and Students

Adolescent students, being young and naive, many times are unaware of, or quiet simply ignore the consequences of copyright violations. Just because they are in front of the computer alone, they seem to think it's OK to steal music, essays, and other on-line documents. Students...this is not legal nor ethical! As teachers, though it will certainly be difficult, we can assist in dampening this dilemma. For instance, we can encourage students to peruse helpful websites, and assist them in learning various fair use policies. In addition, perhaps it's logical to think that students abuse copyright laws because they don't truly understand their contents. In this respect, teachers need to teach their students the fundamental elements of copyrights.

Copyright Guidelines and Teachers

After reviewing an abundance of literature on copyright laws, I've gained a better overall perspective on what it means to be an ethical educator. For instance, I now know that teachers cannot distribute whatever materials they so choose. Instead, they have to be cognoscente of what they issue to their students and, in some cases, seek permission from the given author. Little did I know, perhaps due to the fact that so many of my own teachers have violated copyright laws, that this was such a prevalent topic in education. Like so many other areas in the field, however, I think copyright controversies develop from a lack of funds. Students can't afford books, no problem, we'll just duplicate what we need from the net. It's important to avoid following in these footsteps not only because it's unethical, but also because it's against the law. For me, though, this situation is especially difficult; that is, I find it troubling to fault a teacher who is simply trying to facilitate learning.

Those teachers that religiously follow copyright guidelines can do so by adhering to fair use policies. For example, upon using someone else's poem, teachers can only issue up to 250 words. Guidelines such as these exist for nearly every type of document: books, newspapers, magazines, prose, short stories, essays, web articles, music, broadcast programs, etc. A more detailed explanation of these regulations can be viewed at this link . While these guidelines are certainly necessary (without them we'd be robbing brilliant authors of their rewards and recognition), I find it unsettling that so many teachers teach without the materials they need.

Embedded Video

This video offers a unique way for learning arithmetic concepts; more specifically, it assists students in learning about area and parameter. The unique element derives from the fact that a woman raps about area and parameter formulas. Take a look. It's fun and educational.

Web Page Evaluation

It's no secret that the Internet is potentially valuable to students within most educational atmospheres. But if its powers are misused or misunderstood by students, than the resources it offers are useless. Thus, it's important for students to familiarize themselves, and be competent in evaluating web pages. The most common, but certainly effective ways for accomplishing this feat is by implementing the following components; that is, when students evaluate the validity of certain web-pages they should attempt to perform these actions:

1. Find out about the author of the page
2. Discover reasons for the pages creation
3. Evaluate if the web-page is up to date
4. Pay attention to the tone and style of writing on the page
5. Recognize what kinds of information are being provided
(are sources cited, is there a bibliography, other links, etc.)
6. Examine URLs to determine validity

Though the components above are concise, they seem to be the most common recommendations for evaluating web pages. There is, however, an abundance of literature available on this topic, which goes beyond the short list above. Some of this literature can be viewed at the following sites:

http://www.lib.duke.edu/libguide/evaluating_web.htm
http://www.lib.berkeley.edu/TeachingLib/Guides/Internet/Evaluate.html
http://www.sc.edu/beaufort/library/pages/bones/lesson5.shtml
http://www.hu.mtu.edu/teachtech/search2.htm
http://www.mun.ca/educ/ed4945/web_eval_ex2.html