For this digital project, my
partner and I worked on two topics: Fair Use Practices and Copyright issues as
well as Cyber bullying. I knew more about the latter so I did a bit more
research involving FUP and Copyright.
Researching about FUP and Copyright
was definitely an eye opener for me. For the longest time, I believed that
merely quoting the author whenever I used someone’s work was enough. Utilizing
activities straight off the Internet was no issue. After my research, however,
I was made aware that in the span of time that I have spent as a Special
Education major, I had violated more than a dozen copyright issues unknowingly.
I have had countless lessons on plagiarism and how to avoid such “crimes”, but
for some reason, have never had a single lesson about avoiding copyright
infringement. Learning about such a serious issue, I feel, should have been
emphasized especially for aspiring future teachers. Consequently, because FUP
was designed for educators, knowing its details is crucial to avoiding any “accidental”
copyright infringements. The term “intellectual property” was new to me, and it
should not have been considering that I am a semester away from graduating.
Reading about its importance in the educational realms was even more of a shock
because it was through this that I came upon just to what extent is copyrighted.
The article I read actually stated that it would much be much faster to state
the information that is NOT copyrighted (Starr, 2010)! How are we, as
educators, supposed to teach our students the importance of respecting
copyright when we, ourselves, have little to no idea what doing so means? I
suppose educating oneself about such things is the next answer, but even so. It
should definitely have been introduced within our earlier classes.
Our second topic was cyber
bullying. I, unfortunately, belong to the generation that started its uproar so
I’ve personally seen its negative effects on individuals. Today’s youth has
definitely taken cyber bullying to a new leaf, and has become cleverer with
hiding the evidence. With that said, it is with greatest importance that we
educate our youth with the negative effects of cyber bullying because this can
become quite a vicious cycle. Studies have found that 5% to 25% of children and
youth in the U.S. are bullied and 15 to 20% bully others (Hinduja &
Patchin, 2009). Without proper prevention, these numbers will only continue to
grow, and soon all our students
will have seen the vicious side of cyber bullying.
According to an ISTE standard, it is our responsibility as
teachers to “promote and model digital citizenship and responsibility” (2008).
This means that we must “promote and model digital etiquette and responsible
social interactions related to the use of technology and information” as well
as “promote and model digital etiquette and responsible social interactions
related to the use of technology and information”. Meeting these two requirements involves a
great amount of knowledge on the teacher’s end. This means that they must do
full research on both topics so that they can properly streamline it into their
lessons for their students to fully understand.
I do feel that both topics can greatly benefit students.
Prevention of both cyber bullying and copyright infringement will help raise
our students into more responsible internet users. It will then be our role as
their teachers to model these proper behaviors. As we progress into the technological
age, I feel it is with utmost importance that we learn more about these issues
so that when we enter our classrooms, we will be more prepared and well-versed
when dealing with them. Although cyber bullying and copyright infringement may
be of no relation to each other, it is still quite important that both issues
are taken seriously with the same amount of gravity. We now belong in a world that takes a violation of both
topics as crimes and the last thing we would want is to hear about a past
student who has been imprisoned due to cyber bullying and/or copyright
infringement.
References
Hinduja, S., & Patchin, J. Cyberbullying Research Center.
(2009). Cyberbullying fact sheet Retrieved from http://www.cyberbullying.us/cyberbullying_fact_sheet.pdf
No comments:
Post a Comment