Blog Post #3

 Copyright is an issue primarily centered around the idea that one sole entity owns a piece of work, and that said piece of work needs to be paid for before it can be copied or utilized as one's own. Pretty much anything can be copyrighted from music to educational materials. It is important for teachers to understand the proper rules and guidelines for what is considered copyright and what is considered fair use of materials. Fair use is when teachers use copyrighted resources within reason. An example of fair use would be a college professor photocopying and providing the first chapter of the required textbook during the first week of school to students to read before their own copies have arrived. This would be considered copyright if the professor photocopied the entire book so students did not have to buy it. However, since the professor only photocopied the first chaper it would be considered fair use. As a teacher, I would be extremely careful to create my own original work. When creating from scratch is not possible, I would ensure I was properly following copyright laws/partaking in fair use strategies. 

As a teacher in this day and age, there will be many technology implmentation issues that will need to be combatted. Especially in elementary school settings, it can be difficult for children to focus on their work at hand when they know they could be playing any sort of computer game. To help with decreased productivty when working on computers, I would encourage my students to finish the assignment as soon as possible because if they stay on task and do not linger from their work they would be able to take a "brain break" on the computer and play an appropriate game of their choosing on the computer. I would only do this at the very end of their time being on computers. Otherwise after they started playing games they would never be able to focus on another computer assigment. Another issue I would have to deal with would be academic dishonesty. This would be an issue that would apply more to high schoolers and college students. In order to avoide this, I would have all students submit papers through "turnitin.com." It is so important for students to understand the seriousness of plagarism, and this would make them understand that teachers and faculty are always on the lookout for copyright issues and take it very seriously.