My Reflection of ED 400 thus far

I honestly feel i have learned quite a bit in this class and i love how it has such practical uses in the classroom. I genuinely love courses like this: where we learn a lot, we interact and we don't have to read a silly textbook for the information. I feel i have gained more knowledge and its uses in the classroom than i had ever learned before. Inspiration was such a simple program and i love how i can use it with my students. I had never used it until I took this class. I have found every assignment useful in one way or another. The copyright assignment was good because i became much more aware of the rules that apply to educators and schools. The blog creation was an opportunity for me to learn how to create a fast, easy and free blog that i can use with my friends, students and parents. It allowed me to be creative and express myself through words and pictures. The website is basically the same thing as the blog, except it is a bit more challenging to create. It is an interactive way to get some information across and i have found it very useful as well for the same reasons mentioned above. I liked learning about how to manipulate images because my boyfriend does photo manipulation all the time on Photoshop and it was nice to learn how to do it as well. Right now i am working on creating a digital story. I absolutely love the concept, however am finding it rather challenging to get done because of the program that i am using. When i do this one day with my students, i will definitly use Photostory and not iMovie! All in all, i have learned a great deal and sincerely feel that my time in this class has been worthwhile. :)

Copyright Implications for teachers

The copyright laws effect everyone, especially teachers. Teachers usually print things off of the internet or copy things from books and distribute them to their students. Teachers also allow students to use the internet to access information for a report. With the fair use policy in place, a teacher needs to be really careful about what she is doing and allowing her students to do. Certain things are acceptable, but not all. I know that when i teach i will most likely do what everyone else in my building does, but i think it's important that we're all careful and think about what, when, where, why we're using the copyrighted information. This is important because you never know what could happen.