There are so many people in the world today that are 'sue happy' and will sue someone at the drop of a hat. Keeping that in mind, it is very important to know about copyright laws and what you are and are not allowed to copy, especially being a teacher.
There are several key guidelines to follow when it comes to copyrighted materials, but three of the most important (in order), in my opinion, are as follows:
1. As it states in the Lever and McDonald article, "it is generally accepted that any material placed on the internet is automatically copyrighted even if a copyright notice does not appear on the site." The internet has almost everything you would need to conduct any type of research project. It has music, written works, videos, pictures, and anything else you could possibly want to use. Because there is so much information on-line, it is very important to know how to access different things and how much of stuff you can actually use.
2. Be careful when your basis for copying something is done with the fair-use policy in mind. The fair-use policy can be very questionable and sometimes hard to understand if you are violating it or not. Do as much research as you can before you start making copies and handing them out. Find out what your school districts policy is. There may be policies that your district has adopted that go beyond the fair-use policy. As educators we want to ue the most updateed information out there and use interesting videos and pictures to keep their attention. We can still do those things, but we need to be careful about what we choose to use and how we obtain it.
3. The third guideline that I believe is important to understand with regards to copyrighted materials is also common sense. As stated in the Smaldino, S., Russell, J., Heinich, R., and Molenda, M. article, 'When in doubt, ask!' If you are not sure about something the best thing to do is always ask.
There are other important guidelines to follow about copyrighted materials, but I believe these first two often have gray areas that make them hard to understand. That is why I put them first. We need to look more closely into things so that we can be 100% confident that we havn't broken any laws while gathering information to teach to our students.
Hi Aaron:
ReplyDeleteI agree with you more than one hundred percent. There are people who would just love to sit back and collect by any means possible. Teachers can sometimes be so careless when using materials that are coming either from internet sources or from workbooks. I have seen some wild stuff by working in the school. I can remember on a few ocassions where teachers came in the workroom to make copies and I believe that this one teacher had used a half pack of paper (250 sheets) making copies from a workbook for the class. I can remember thinking to myself "what in the world are you doing!" As the secretary, a part of my job is ordering supplies/materials for the school. The last time I ordered paper was before Christmas(50 boxes/10 packs per box), you do the math. How about it will be time to order again soon. It makes no sense. Sometimes I feel like what happened to using the textbooks.
I also agree with teachers using video and they probably don't think twice when they go to Blockbuster's and pick up that movie "Annie" and show it in its entirety to the class. I don't even know if some of them even think about the fair use law.
Your opionions are similar to mine. I think we will be more aware of laws and guidelines once we become educators.