Copyrights and its laws...

Tonight we talked about copyright and its laws. This is a very sensitive and confusing subject and I am not more educated about it but at least I know where to look for the information and my responsabilities as a teacher to ensure that our students understandand their legal rights and responsabilities under copyright law and  how the law affects their creativity. It is also important that our students understand the relationship between copyright and innovation, fair use, and how copyright is interpreted by copyright owners. It is true that copyright law has many restrictions but at the same time permits positive actions to protect ourselves in the digital media.
We also discussed about some of the standards in educational field such as, fair use of online material; purpose and character of use; nature of the copyrighted work, amount or portion taken; and the effect of its use.
In conclusion, it is our responsabilities  to guide our students  and educate ourselves to a better understanding of the boundaries of copyright law to help our students make wise choices for a better online behavior. It's challenging to understand every piece of it copyright law! The most prudent thing to do is to ask permission when using someone else creativity as part of our work.

Inspirational thoughts...

Last night we had a guess speaker, who gave us some great inspiration as we will become
the teachers of the future. One of the most important thing that he talked about was the importance
of being prepare to the rapid changes that are happening with technology and consequently
with the minds of our students.
As teachers, we have to be prepare and vulnerable to those changes; therefore it's very crucial
that we are updated, engaged and knowledgeable of how to use technology in the classroom as a great,
modern and effective way to deliver instruction.
Our state, California, has been facing a budget crisis, which is affecting tremendously the education
of our children.  One of the negative consequences of this crisis is the increased number of students per teacher. Therefore  teachers should be using technology as a way to improve and deliver
instruction in a timely manner.  Teachers have to deal with more issues in the classroom since the ratio of students per teacher has increased. With this in mind, technology is a great, fabulus and amazing vehicle to use that  will help  teachers  a lot to maximize their precious time and obtain immediate feedback from students. Creating a survey online is a great example of this strategy. I will definitely use it in my classroom.
Great speaker! I enjoyed the class a lot! Thanks!

Motivate yourself and motivate others!

I missed class last Thursday and I had a hard time opening some of the  videos but I learned something about the motivational video. I learned that we all have different reasons to do things and how important is to be motivated in life to create and to  take others perspective into account when we collaborate in a project together. That is why I love technology. But I am so immigrant and I know I have a long way to go; but these reflections are helping me to understand how much there is out there for me to learn. I know that all these tools that we are learning are going to be very beneficial for my career as a teacher. I see how much students enjoy computer classes and I want them to love my class, so I will motivate them through the use of technology and I know their creativity will bloom. Technology helps everyone see things from their  different perspective. We can be creative in some many different ways; especially when we are designing our lessons. We can be our own architects of our learning and our students can be their own designers of their future. It's very critical that we support our students' learning through  projects using technology. I am learning a lot! My kids are already learning from me, and they feel so knowledgeable  about all these different websites that they can use in their future projects.