Thus far, this has been the best course I have taken in years. Every week I come away feeling like I have learned something that can be directly applied in my classroom. Much of this is due to the fact that the course is hands-on, and taught by someone who is not only an expert on the topic, but is also an expert on how to teach the topic!
My fifth grade students love Thursdays. First, because they have one hour of art in the morning. Second, because I share the things that I learned in class. Knowing how to use the technology that is available to us has helped me become a better teacher. Through the use of technology, I am better able to differentiate my lessons. My students know how to use Inspiration to help them organize their thoughts when planning an essay, or taking notes on a chapter in social studies or science. They know how to access our classroom homepage to get updated information about school events, and homework assignments. They also know that while Wordle has great entertainment value, it can also be used as a diagnostic tool. During our mentor author unit of study we copied the text from The Keeping Quilt by Patricia Polacco into Wordle and noticed that the word "Quilt" was substantially larger than the rest of the text. We discussed the reasons why that happened, then I tried the same thing with the students' pieces. One student wrote about Thanksgiving with her family. She wanted her audience to know that she enjoyed spending time with her family on that day. I can't tell you how hard she laughed when the word "like" was three times the size of Thanksgiving. "I think I need to use the thesaurus," was her reply. I am currently in the process of having Photo Story 3 installed on the computers in our lab, and our media specialist is already looking for inexpensive microphones. We are going to publish our memoirs using digital storytelling.
As for the rest of this course - I am looking forward trying everything.
Wednesday, October 29, 2008
Wednesday, October 8, 2008
Copyright - Implications for Educators
Over the past few weeks, I have had several conversations with our Library Media Specialist (LMS), as well as my grade level partners, regarding our concerns about Copyright Law and its impact on our teaching. First, the language arts curriculum writing teams have put together units of study that contain re-typed copies of entire texts by authors such as Patricia Polacco, Cynthia Rylant, and Sandra Cisneros to name just a few. These texts are reused year after year to teach specific reading and writing strategies. Many teachers and administrators are under the impression that if you re-type a text instead of photocopying it, Copyright Law does not apply (even though our LMS tells them otherwise). As a matter of fact, a few years ago she attended a workshop that was attended by several children's authors, including Patricia Polacco. Ms. Polacco informed the attendees that she rarely gives permission to reproduce her work.
Budget constraints and ever changing curriculums prohibit many districts from purchasing expensive classroom sets of these anchor texts. However, good teachers know that it is much more effective for every learner to have a copy of the text for discussion and to use as a reference to gather supporting details. We use the copies because we know they are effective tools for learning. Yet, when we provide students with these copyrighted texts, we are inadvertently telling them that it is okay to use a text in this way.
The Fair Use guidelines are posted next to the photocopier, our LMS reviews the guidelines with teachers every year, reads aloud the letter from Disney prohibiting the use of their videos for entertainment purposes, and she frowns when she notices teachers making copies of The Keeping Quilt. We know that it is not fair to copy these texts, but we also know that by using these texts, our students have become better readers and writers. Making the choice between unfair and fair use is difficult for teachers, and unfortunately, I believe that the practice will continue until Patricia Polacco finds out what we are doing.
Budget constraints and ever changing curriculums prohibit many districts from purchasing expensive classroom sets of these anchor texts. However, good teachers know that it is much more effective for every learner to have a copy of the text for discussion and to use as a reference to gather supporting details. We use the copies because we know they are effective tools for learning. Yet, when we provide students with these copyrighted texts, we are inadvertently telling them that it is okay to use a text in this way.
The Fair Use guidelines are posted next to the photocopier, our LMS reviews the guidelines with teachers every year, reads aloud the letter from Disney prohibiting the use of their videos for entertainment purposes, and she frowns when she notices teachers making copies of The Keeping Quilt. We know that it is not fair to copy these texts, but we also know that by using these texts, our students have become better readers and writers. Making the choice between unfair and fair use is difficult for teachers, and unfortunately, I believe that the practice will continue until Patricia Polacco finds out what we are doing.
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