Blog Post 3

 

Welcome to blog 3, today I discussing copyright and fair use within the classroom, technology implementation issues, and my experience in creating a classroom newsletter. 

       Within the classroom environment, there are many tools and resources that one would like to share with their students and families. Sometimes resources such as study guides or workbooks are often copyrighted. The term copyright is defined as a form of protection for any type of creative work, videos, software, articles, or textbooks. As a teacher, you can utilize copyright materials by following the fair use guidelines. Fair use is a set of guidelines established within copyright legislation that states that copyright material may be used by nonprofits for educational reasons. Although, it states that teachers can use copyright materials teachers should only use a limited amount such as brief excerpts or examples. As a teacher, if I create my instructional material I can protect my work through copyright. To copyright my materials, I can place a copyright symbol on it,  register it legally, or utilize Creative Commons licenses to designate ownership and prevent changes to my work. When students are creating their work such as writing papers students should provide citations and acknowledge the resources that they have used through citations and work cited pages. As educators, we should work to demonstrate the proper use of technology. Teaching our students of technological law such as copyright as their use so students can be aware of what they can use throughout the digital sphere.

      Within the classroom teachers are bound to encounter many issues especially within remote learning. Technology implementation issues that are likely to arise in an elementary classroom would be a lack of funding and decreased productivity. Addressing lack of funding within a classroom, we have to understand that it is not only a district issue but it is connected to state funding and legislation. If I would like to take action to address the lack of funding in my classroom, I could create a crowdfunding source to raise money to purchase software programs or resources needed for my classroom. I would also encourage my school to participate in educational training so our teachers can understand the benefits of implementing technology in the classroom and the benefits of community buy-ins to provide all students with the same opportunities. 

    Young student's social and emotional development thrive in an environment that is positive and they can feel comfortable being themselves. As a future educator, I believe that students learn through physical movement and play. Addressing decreased productivity Within remote learning can be addressed by motivating students each morning, using resources such as ClassDojo to communicate with students and encourage positive behaviors, and rewarding students to motivate them to continue to learn it’s not just simply do work. Lastly, I believe to increase student productivity teachers should continually communicate with parents and guardians to create a line of communication where parents can no resources and tools to aid their child at home.

      Working on the classroom newsletter design allowed me to acquire various skills. I was able to learn how to organize sections into multiple columns within a graphic. When I typically create graphics, I tend to display everything horizontally. This method is something that I would not do in a newsletter because it would not appear aesthetically pleasing and would look cluttered. By practicing on the newsletter, I was able to practice inserting various shapes, text boxes, and shading techniques. Lastly, I learned how to find tools in Microsoft Word to make my designs look not only look more professional but target my audience which is young students and parents. By learning how to create different dashes and lines within the graphic I was able to add a permission slip on my newsletter. In the future, I could improve my newsletter by creating a dedicated section to weekly objectives, assignments, or reminders. In education, especially elementary school, parents and students need reminders of events and activities occurring in the classroom. By having a dedicated section within the newsletter, parents will always know where to look to get the latest information. Rather than having a newsletter that looks different every week having a format that can be followed throughout the school year will aid in effective communication. As a future educator, the skills that I used in creating this design will assist me in my future classroom. The abilities I have been able to gain will enable me to continue to make effective newsletters to communicate with parents and guardians. These skills will allow me to create worksheets for classroom activities and materials such as labels and flyers.

This is my "Classroom Newsletter" for my 2nd grade Language Arts class.