Topic 1 - Fair Use
Fair use is a complicated legal matter surrounding copyright law. At it's heart, fair use establishes certain things that copyrighted material can be for without permission or payment. These concepts can be tricky, but the Classroom Use Exemption (17 U.S.C. §110(1)) is pretty straight forward. Any teacher or student can perform or display copyright materials as long as:
- The class is in a classroom.
- The class is meeting in person.
- The classroom is at a nonprofit educational institution.
To be honest, I am dangerously uninterested in most of the legal side of education. I should be much more engaged and interested in what we can and cannot do in the classroom, but I am not interested.
Luckily enough, math and science incorporates a lot of open source material. A large focus in those fields includes collaboration and sharing your ideas with other people. I think the largest difficulty for students would be citing their references, which is pretty straight forward.
Topic 2 - Mobile Devices
Mobiles devices is an umbrella term for any kind of mobile piece of technology that students might use in the classroom (like a smartphone, tablet, e-reader, etc.) I am a big fan of using mobile devices in the classroom. I know that these devices can cause a distraction in the classroom, but the students are going to be using technology for the rest of their lives. I think it is important to show how these fun gadgets can also be powerful tools to help them learn.The PEW Research Center did a study on the use of technology in the classroom. 73% of teachers report that mobile devices are used in the students learning environment, and students use their mobile devices to access (79%) and submit (76%) assignments online.
This page here has a list of excellent apps to use in the classroom and ideas on how to incorporate mobile devices in the classroom.
So I agree with you on the whole politics of education and what you can and cannot use, while doing some research on Fair Use I found an article about how two professors were being charged nearly 2,000 by the New York Times for using 3 quotes in their new book. But the Times doesn't have to pay anyone for using their quotes. The politics of this is just ridiculous, it's all about who you are and how much money they can get. As for schools, I doubt the Times will be seeing any students but it's important to understand that as teachers if we are going to go public with something we need to make sure to cover all of our bases. http://fair.org/home/for-nyt-fair-use-depends-on-whos-doing-the-using/
ReplyDeleteYeah, from my understanding it looks like one complicating factor is whether or not copyrighted material is appropriately cited or not. It wouldn't surprise me if the writers at the New York Times are more up to date on how to properly cite something, but I agree on just how ridiculous it can get.
DeleteI completely agree with you about mobile devices and their use in the classroom. Although there are many ways that phones/ipads/computers can be very distracting to learning there are so so many ways that they are beneficial to learning! I think that your statistic is very interesting that 73% of teachers say that they have access to mobile devices in their classroom. It would be interesting to see how this percentage has increased over the years. I just think the difficult part is teaching students how to use these devices as a learning tool and limit their ability to be distracted by them. When I was teacher assisting, often times my teacher would not monitor which websites the students were accessing and they were playing games on gaming websites. I definitely think it is a powerful tool, as teachers we have to teach them how to use them effectively!
ReplyDeleteI also think it is interesting to see the generational shift in attitude over mobile devices in the classroom. I'm currently teaching physics for a summer camp and one of the directors basically said, "I'm not going to tell you that you can't use cell phones, but there's no legitimate reason for students to use cell phones in a classroom."
DeleteI also agree that distractions are the biggest hurdle because there is no real definitive way to limit it. There are certain technological protocols we can follow to limit the students access to distracting material, but ultimately it's an extension of classroom management.
It's crazy to think about how far technology has taken schools since I was in grade school.
ReplyDeleteI agree! I am amazed when I walk into a classroom and every child has their own iPad or laptop to use.
ReplyDelete