Sunday, June 27, 2010
Copy Rights & Fair Use Policy
Welcome to ETEC 424! We learned about Copy Rights and Fair Use Policy. I would like to hear what you have to say about it. Please explain what have you learned, the importance of respecting this policy and what will you do to make sure your students learn and follow the copy rights and fair use policy.
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6 comments:
Copy rights and fair use policy are very confusing. However in most cases there are guidelines for teacher and students that can be located online to help us with the “rights and wrongs” of copy right and fair use. Also when using material even if being used for educational purpose it is probably not a bad idea to go ahead and get permission to use the material. Also copyright laws are civil laws and not criminal laws. You cannot re-use material in order to make a profit off of it at anytime. Even these laws are confusing; especially to me we must try our best to abide by them.
It is important to abide by the rules, and set good examples for our student. Students watch us as educators and it is important that we do the right thing, so they are intrigued to do the right thing as well. Students may have questions about copyrighting and fair use during their school projects, and it is our responsibility to teach them about it, and guide them to the proper information on copyrighting and fair use.
When can show students where to find information on the internet about copyrighting and fair use policy, and we can also encourage student to use proper netiquette. We can do this by teaching them the dangers of the internet, and how not to become a cyber bully. We must set examples for our students to follow and keep them informed at all times. It is our responsibility to educate our students.
Learning about copy right laws and fair use policy I learned that it is easy for people to just ignore the law. In reality the law is very real and always has consequences beyond what we see in front of us. I have learned that it is always best to cite other people’s work if you are going to be using information they provide. For one it is just standard good morals and ethics to do so. I would want someone else to cite my work if they were using it. At the same time the work is still protected under copyright law unless you have been given permission, even if you cite where you found the information. This is something that I did not know and was a big shocker to me actually.
It is important to know the copyright laws and fair use policies so that as teachers we are instructing the correct way. We are teaching our students to use good ethics when researching information. If we ourselves know the laws and what is fair use and what is not we can try to prevent any future problems from arising. As teachers we are always researching and looking up different information to input into the curriculum we already have. Knowing the laws will help us to achieve the right way to go about doing that.
When assigning any work that will have research attached to it, it is important that we teach our students about the fair use policies and copy right laws. We can go over the right way to conduct research and look up information that is credible on the internet. As teachers we can also instruct our students on the right netiquette. There are proper ways to behave when online and there are wrong ways. It is important that we teach our students not to bully and treat others fairly. The same goes for anything in the classroom as well. If we teach to behave nicely and fairly while still in school we are creating stepping stones proper behaviors when they are out of school.
I do not know if I should say that I am oblivious or just plain dumb. I only made 47% and I read the article very thoroughly. I had heard about the legislation regarding educational use of movies, graphics, and I thought as long as you were using multimedia in an educational setting you were not breaking any law. Now I must admit that around the holidays, teachers will tend to allow students to view movies the last couple of days before the school let out or the day of the holiday breaks. Movies such as “How the Grinch stole Christmas” or a “Christmas Story” are very popular before winter break. I learned that if the movie has now educational value and if you are showing the whole movie when not in a film class is against the law! I think 90% of teachers may have broken the law at the school where I am employed. I have noticed that when I have used clips from YouTube that owners of the videos have given a written permission at the end to use the videos to educate. I had to do a presentation about Autism and Asperger Syndrome and had found a clip about a little boy growing up with Autism. At the very end, the parents as the owners gave permission to use it. I never even really thought about it. I was like great but really I was like ok, I was still going to use it.
It is important to know about copy rights and fair use policy because there could be major consequences to using multimedia without permission.
When I was taking the Copyright Quiz, I got question #2 wrong. I was asked: A teacher buys a single-user software program with department money and puts it on the local-area network (LAN). It is frequently used by several teachers at the same time. This is done in violation of a written district policy against using single-user programs on the LAN. After two years, the software company takes action against the individual teacher. The district is also liable. I thought that if it was used in an education setting but boy was I wrong. The test revealed the district must enforce its written policy, not just post it. Somebody needs to be monitoring the network (and, it must be said, the stand-alone computers, too). Unenforced policy cost one large district over $1 million. This is what Nick Myers does at our school. He monitors all activity over the internet and on computers. He does weekly sweeps; if you have something on your computer, illegal music or program download he deletes it. I just thought he was computer jerk keeping kids and teachers off MySpace and Facebook.
Schools are not some wealthy corporation that can take big lawsuits. We have to be careful and we have to use common sense. A million dollar lawsuit would destroy a small 3A district. At the beginning of the year, every student and parent must sign a form about copy rights, fair use policy and netiquette. Students are made aware of “good” computer use and “bad” computer use. They are also made aware of the consequences which include being suspended use for up to a school year. This is truly sad because most assignment are done online, needs some kind of research. We as educators have to be mindful of the laws and my first step is to print off the article, Copy-right, Copy-wrong and the cheat sheet and put in my personal portfolio of helpful hints to aid me in becoming a better educator.
Reading the copy right laws and fair use policy it made me think how many people actually (and purposefully) ignore the laws. A lot of people think that it is ok to use other peoples work. They think, “Oh I’ll never get in trouble for that.” But the reality is that everyone should cite the work they use on the internet, even if it is just a color page.
As a future teacher I would teach my students about copyright laws and the fair use policies. It is important for them to know and understand what they can use and what they can’t. This will teach them to respect other peoples work as well. Also, knowing the laws will be more beneficial to us when implement the information we find on the internet into our lesson plans.
What I learned about copyright and fair usage is just how much I didn’t know about it. I never realized how many technicalities there are to it. Before, I understood that it was important; I just never really paid any attention to why. I plan on being a high school English teacher, and now I see just how much this will affect me on a daily basis.
I believe that everyone needs to be aware of the copyright and fair usage laws for the very obvious reasons. One: It is our responsibility as educators to teach our students about copyright and fair usage policies, just as we would teach them about chemistry or history. Two: copyright and fair usage laws are just that, laws. Just as we should obey the speed limit and pay our taxes, we should not use information or sources in inappropriate instances. Think of it as a form of trespassing if you will.
In order to help your students know, we as teachers, have to know as much as possible about these particular laws. In most classes, the students would probably benefit from a lesson or even a unit over copyright, fair usage, and netiquette. As much as technology is used in this day and age, young people would only be able to benefit from this. I know that I did not realize how serious copyright infringement and plagiarism was until I was in college, and read the syllabus in my classes. I want to be sure that my students understand just how serious this subject is. This could be made into a fun, interesting lesson that would help the students remember, since they will be using this through their college career and likely into the workforce.
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