Blog Post #3

                     

 Before this course, I knew very, very little about copyright. I knew that it existed, and meant you couldn’t copy or share certain materials, but I didn’t know any of the specifics. I went through 12 years of education without learning anything about copyright, and I would want to change that for my students. First, I would make sure that as a teacher I was fully aware of all copyright rules, and what they mean. It’s very easy to find materials online to use for lessons or classroom activities, but just because it’s online doesn’t mean that you can use it. I’d ensure that all of my teaching materials were ok to use. Then, I would teach my students about copyright rules. Most students are very resourceful when it comes to the internet, but they don’t always know when they’re doing something wrong. So I would teach my students everything that I’ve learned in this class like fair use and the different creative commons license, to make sure that as they navigate through the internet and use the materials they find on it, that they are doing so responsibly and legally.  

    Cyberbullying is a major issue all over the world, not just in classrooms. Students, however, don’t always understand the consequences that can come from cyberbullying. On the first day of school, I would explain to my students that bullying would not be tolerated, in any way, shape, or form. I would go over why bullying is wrong, what can happen when you bully someone, and I would provide examples. Depending on what grade I teach I would use story books, videos, or an activity to help explain the consequences of bullying. I would also ensure that my students understood that bullying doesn’t just happen in person, but that cyber bullying is also a serious problem. I would ensure that all classroom activities online would require the students names, that they weren’t anonymous. That way I would be able to know who was saying what to other students in the classroom. This isn’t a way to completely stop cyberbullying, but it can help limit the impacts, and help make sure that the classroom is a safe space for children. 

I learned a lot through the newsletter assignment. Before this assignment, I didn’t know how to use most of the aspects of MS Word. Now I can confidently upload images, adjust the margins, add columns, create hyperlinks, and so much more. The biggest challenge was figuring out the layout with the two columns, but eventually I figured it out. Now that I understand the basics of MS Word a bit better, I can start to work on making my newsletters prettier and more creative. As an Elementary Education major, I will one day become a teacher, where I will need to send out newsletters to parents. Learning these skills now gives me plenty of time to improve upon them so that someday I can send out the best possible newsletters that I can. I can also transfer the skills I learned from this assignment into making other things for my classroom. Whether I use MS to design newsletters or classroom activities, these newfound skills will be invaluable to my future.