I have been mulling over the ideas and questions I’ve had about copyright and cyberbullying issues. I found it difficult to blog a times for two reasons. One was that I felt the topic of copyright is a bit ambiguous. It is not always clear what rules to follow because they are not the same from image to image even if all the images are from the same site. Then there is the topic of cyberbullying, which has so many subtopics to consider from the psychology of bullying to taking legal action against it.
The project titled Image Use was fitting for my class because it made my students aware of copyright laws for text and images, as well as enabled them to apply correct image use to their social studies projects. I noted from other group presentations the I need to reiterate safe internet use in my classroom as students use the netbook to publish writing, add to their blogs and research topics online. I plan to remind them of applicable points from the acceptable use policy whenever we take out the netbooks. I don’t think I’m ready to break out into a song about it yet though.
On another note, I have a student who has created a personal essay about the benefits of having netbooks in our classroom. I believe that the netbook use in my classroom has led to building a better classroom community. Students love to share math games to support our learning in a particular math chapter, and they help one another solve technical problems.
During the break between courses, I plan to keep investigating sources and resources on the web. I want to blog about my great finds and incorporate a wider variety of digital tools into my class so that my students are engaged with them through their own hands-on use instead of just being an audience for it.
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