Copyright

Copyright

            Copyright law seems to be an ever-evolving concept.  With the emergence of new technology, such as Napster, the laws had to change to protect material that was now accessible with only a few clicks of a mouse.  Although there are guidelines for what is “fair use” of material, the law is vague and has a lot of gray area.  There are very few specifics on which teachers, or anyone, can base their decisions concerning fair use.  This is somewhat surprising to me, however, I believe it is a good thing as I will explain later.  The guidelines, in my opinion, seem to favor teachers.  They are more lenient towards teachers using material in an educational setting.  In this case I believe the gray area in copyright law are a very good thing.  This allows educators to use pieces of material in their classroom environment to help students understand concepts and also to make learning come alive for students.  Engaging the students in learning is a necessity so that students will grasp concepts and material in a way that is meaningful for them.  It is not sufficient to have students learn material only for a test, after which they forget most of the material that was covered.  That is why even though there is gray area in the copyright law, I believe it is not only a good thing, but a necessity to help educators make learning come alive for students.

            I can only recall a few instances of copyright law being broken that I am aware of now but was not at the time of the infraction.  I can remember watching movies in school as a reward.  The movies were not shown to one class but all students who were deserving of a reward.  I am now aware that this was in violation of copyright law.  However, I do not believe that the violations were intentional, but rather, they were done out of ignorance of the law.  This does not justify the violation, but it does enable one to understand why the violation may have occurred.  That is why I do think it is our responsibility as educators to teach copyright respect, and law, to students.  Students, nor anyone, should be expected to just know something that they have previously never come across in their studies or in life.  We must share copyright law and respect to students so that they do not violate copyright law out of ignorance.  It may be necessary to take a lesson, or a few, to help students understand what copyright law is and why it is important.  At least if students are informed of copyright law and how it applies in, and out, of the classroom they can make better informed decisions about how to properly use material.

Educause Reading

            Overall, the data in the Educause reading falls in line with what my expectations were about the use of technology by current students and Net Geners.  The study found that the highest use of a computer was in pursuit of academic activities such as writing papers or preparing presentations.  This was followed by the use of the computer for communication.  This is what I was expecting.  All college level coursework is usually required to be typed, not hand written, indicating that students would have to be proficient enough in the use of a computer in order to fulfill this requirement.  It would also suggest that students would have to spend time doing this activity, as it is what is required and expected of them.  Another finding in the study that actually fell in line with what my expectations were going into this reading is that students 1. Tend to overrate their abilities with software and 2. Moving beyond basic functions inside most programs can be problematic for students.  This is what I was expecting because most Net Geners have taught themselves the skills they need with most software as a requirement for their coursework.  In general, they seem to be lacking formal training.  This would suggest that unless students have had to do complex tasks with software they only know the basic functions they need in order to succeed in their studies.  I don’t think this poises a huge problem for Net Geners as most prefer to learn new technology by trial and error.  However, it could indicate a reason why students, and Net Geners, overrate their abilities.  It must stem from the confidence they have in themselves to learn new technology.  Not that this is necessarily a bad thing, because I would venture to say that in most cases they do have the ability to learn new functions inside a piece of software without too many problems.

            One question I would have included in this survey is if students have in fact had formal training with the software they are using or if they were left to learn the software on their own while using a piece of software during the course of their studies.  I think it would be interesting to see how many students actually received formal training and how many learn solely during the course of their studies to fulfill a requirement in the curriculum.  I would suspect that more students learned by trial and error while doing coursework than by receiving actual formal training with the software they are being required to use.  However, in most cases this should not present a problem for the Net Geners as we have seen previously that they are able to learn by trial and error and are usually not fearful to dive head first into a new piece of software.  Although most Net Geners are able to learn in this way, I believe we may be doing them a disservice by not giving them formal training with the software they are being required to use.  If we could figure out a way in which to incorporate this training into the existing curriculum we would help our students in a huge way.  This would allow students to be familiar with not only the basic aspects of the software but give them a more in depth knowledge of the software and a better understanding of the more complex operations they can perform.