C&I Ed. Research Project

This article outlines different things done in classrooms that could raise issues of copyright and ways ways to address them. The author also addresses the copyright rights of students and how they should be protected.

This article proposes and answers the question of a specific copyright quandary. Today's teachers often use DVDs as teaching aids, yet few of us know how to or even bother with attributing copyright to it. The narrow focus of the article, however, can be taken to heart and expanded to cover related issues.

The article outlines how teachers should present media to class and rules to follow so they don't violate copyright laws when taping shows to show to their students in class. The four factors he outlines for material to be considered fair use includes the purpose for use, the nature of the work, the amount used and the effect on the value of the work. Overall, this article gives a detailed guide of how teachers can keep themselves safe when presenting media to students.

In this article, Lawrence Lessing, a professor of law at the Harvard law school looks at how the idea of copyright has evolved over the past century and implicates much copyright issues attributed to advancement in technology, particularly the internet. He suggests changing the law on how copyrighting is viewed and points out copyrighting laws must evolve as the digital age we live in keeps evolving.

As a history teacher, I love how Professor Lessing connects something like copyright law to the Constitution, and weaves us through the decades and centuries of change and development. I am always looking for ways to connect history, such as the passages and amendments of the Constitution, to areas that affect my students' daily lives. Copyright law is just such a thing for these kids, with all the electronics, technologies, and downloading they do. They will see the relevance immediately, and therefore focus better and and up learning more!

While this article focuses on how librarians feel about and deal with the complexities of copyright and fair use rules, I find it relevant and valuable for classroom teachers too. Fear of plagiarism and copyright infringement in our classrooms is real, and can restrain us from implementing resources just as much as it can librarians.

Teaching at Its BestThis third edition of the best-selling handbook offers faculty at all levels an essential toolbox of hundreds of practical teaching techniques, formats, classroom activities, and exercises, all of which can be implemented immediately.

This offers information on frequently asked questions dealing with copyright and fair use laws. It breaks down the questions by categories. Videos, software, internet, etc. 

According to this article, regular use of computers has an effect on student performance. In this study, they used 986 fourth graders from 55 classrooms in nine Massachusetts school districts. Most of the students only used computers to write their papers. However, they found that students that used their computers for fun and games had a negative effect on students reading scores. As long as students used the computers for writing purposes this had positive effects on their test scores.

This Article is about the basics of copyright law. Understanding the law will help people not to break them. 

Participants in this study included 122 preschool children, which included 57 boys and 65 girls in a head start program. The results indicated that 53% of the participants had a home computer and 83% had children software. There were 29% that played on their home computers daily. An additional 44% of the children played on the computer on a weekly basis. Children that had computer access showed improvement measures in cognitive development in this particular study.

Stanford University provides an overview of fair use law.

This site addresses the guidelines of Copyright and Fair Use policies. It is interesting because it separates what is allowed to students and what is allowed to teachers. Enjoy!

In this article, examples are given from teachers about their experiences with their opinions about copyright and teaching practices. It discusses how copyright laws are provided for educational use. Insight is given to how teachers can misunderstand fair use and how teachers cope. According to the interviews in this study, teachers are not impressed with copyright rules.

Provides tools to evaluate whether your action constitutes fair use.

This article talks about the characteristics of pbl, the reasons to use pbl, examples of pbl, and more. It serves a a great framework on how to get started.

I just took on the position of a 7th/8th grade math lab teacher and the person before me spent a lot of time using packets to teach the students material. I very quickly realized that this method only left the material in the students' mind for a day or two. So for the past week i've been trying to figure out exactly how to use methods of instruction like project-based learning. PLB is an amazing method that more teachers should be aware of, the only issue is that there seems to be a lot of planning up front for this to be a success. I've decided though, that if all that time of planning up front would help my students to KNOW mathematics, then it's worth it.

Reading the article and being a 7th grade math teacher I have realized that their are alot of teaching stratgies that could work if we had more time to actually focus on mastery and understanding. Alot of teachers are placed on calenders on what has to be taught. With the Texas curriculum being so data driven it has become hard for us to really use those fun teaching stratigies.

This article gives an overview of K-12 distance education. The article discusses the factors associated with instructional quality and effectiveness.

I found this article interesting because my nephew (who lives with me) is taking a few classes on-line through Texas Tech in order to graduate early. I do think the instructional quality is not as high as an actual teacher and it is not for everyone. A student has to be self-motivated in order for it to work and be effective.

Electronic Frontier Foundation's FAQ about fair use.

In a research done by Sarah Thuele Lubienski and her husband Christopher, they found that once they controlled for a family's socioeconomic background, students who attended public school actually outperformed private school slightly.

I enjoyed this article! I enjoy the debates of whether public or private schools are better. I like that the writers pointed out that many public schools are doing better than private schools. There are so many factors that come into play when dealing with topics such as these. For instance, parental involvement. There's more than what meets the eye, many people need to see that rather than set their hearts on one type of school that is "correct". Good stuff!

I totally agree with ending of this article and how children do in school.(its truly up to if students like their teachers). What happened to that parental support so that with any teacher a student can be successsful. Every time the debate comes up I really wonder how much control the students have over US teachers.

This website provides power point presentations about interactive science notebooks.

I was interested to read this article about interactive notebooks. We do science notebooking in our school. I try to modify it to a lifeskills level. I like the idea of vocabulary briefcase. I also like the comment about teachers should only write in blue or black ink. I think that it is important that the students doesn't think it is being "graded" that way they aren't afraid to share ideas.

My school is a large advocate of interactive notebooks. I like them alot for math it makes students have to show ownership for their notes. From this article I enjoyed reading about the vocabulary brief case. I think I will try to modify that idea for math. :)

ANY method that helps strengthen the teacher-student-parent triangle is an invaluable resource. This dissertation touches on all the corners, and does so in a way that always keeps the student at the focus. It is another example of how technology, even when not used during classroom lessons, improves learning.