After doing a little exploring, I was able to come across a blog post Warlick wrote on 2/25/2008 entitled “The Cost of Copyright”. This post was actually a response he had after reading an article on copyright. I thought this would be a perfect tie in to our class because we did the exact same thing! The article Warlick read brought up two key points. “One is that we do not have a clear and authoritative definition of fair use for education and libraries — and second, that our current notions of fair use are excessively conservative, and that what and how students learn in our schools is suffering as a result” (Warlick 2008).
Two things can be done by educators. First, he brings up that teachers need to learn about the rights that can benefit them under copyright law. Teachers have unique exceptions in terms of what is deemed “fair-use” and they need to be sure they are aware of this. Also, there needs to be a code of practice put in place by educators so that there are clear rules for the fair use of copyright materials for educational purposes. Many of the guidelines currently in place are vague, even the article Copyright 101 for Educators didn’t have definite statements. Instead, the article said this is “usually” or “probably” fair use of copyright materials.
This brings me into my readings from my classmates’ blogs. Brianna, JJ, Christine, and Teresa all chose to read Copyright 101 for Educators. Each of them addressed how copyright laws have implications as we become educators and the role we have to teach our students about these laws. Like Teresa said, the responsibility falls on us as educators to be aware of these laws and do our best not to break them. On top of this, we need to have the same standards for our students and uphold copyright laws in our classroom.
Christine brought up that it will be challenging as a teacher to put together future presentations without using anyone else’s work. I think this is why it is so important to have strict, well-defined guidelines put in place so educators are confident they are not breaking any laws. But there are some exceptions already in place we need to become aware of, Brianna addressed how important it is for educators to know and understand the TEACH Act. JJ also brought this up and it was nice to see that she tied it into the distance education class we are currently taking. She also brought up that now she has new insight on all the resources available to us.
We can’t be ignorant about this issue just because it may be confusing to understand. As everyone has learned, copyright laws have a direct influence on the way we present materials to our students. In the end, it is our responsibility to ensure that teachers and students alike are modeling good digital citizenship behavior.
Excellent connections on a topic that is overly vague and confusing.
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