Blog Post #3

 Copyright is the ability to claim your work. Whether that be artistic, visual, a movie, musical, literary, and it includes the ability to allow or disallow others from utilizing that material. Copyright is the right you have to distribute your work how you see fit. Fair use is a way around copyright. Sometimes someone may refuse to let anyone use their work, but it is a useful example to teach others. Fair use allows you to use their work for educational purposes or a small amount of their work. This protects your ability to comment on their work and it protects their ability to distribute their work how they see fit.

The two biggest concerns I have with using technology in the class room is academic dishonesty and reduced productivity. Students have found ways to cheat in physical classrooms for years, and in person it is much harder to cheat. The online space makes cheating much easier and it is harder and harder to verify who did legitimate work, especially in the realm of language arts. Tools such as TurnIt In help, but I have seen some legitimate worked get flagged as plagiarized. It is a tricky area to navigate as a teacher. Reduced student productivity is another big concern for me. I know there are programs that let me see what my students are doing, but I would hate to be that teacher who watches his students. It feels very invasive.  

I learned a lot about using Microsoft Word and design. I looked at a lot of newsletter examples and tried to incorporate various aspects of those newsletter in my own newsletter. I enjoyed learning these new skills and I hope to learn more about digital design. If I were doing this again I would try to use a better color scheme. This one looks rather bland and I would try to spice it up. I want the newsletter to be engaging but useful to the students. I want to give them a reason to read and interact with the newsletters I put out.