Copyright, the do's and don'ts

Growing up in school, I can remember my teachers showing videos and movies to the class. I remember one time in particular when my elementary teacher told us that she showed a certain Disney movie every year to her classroom for exhibiting good behavior. I remember thinking how great it would be if all of my teachers would do that in the years to come. What I didn’t know was the fact that a copyright law was being violated.

I have just read a little bit about copyright.  I know there is still a lot of information out there that I am completely unaware of, but I do have a little insight now. 

Videos can be recorded for the classroom if the original showing was for all audiences.  It could have been shown on the cabel network.  If it was not originally shown for all general audiences, you can't show it in the classroom unless you have permission.  Also, this video must be destroyed and no longer used after 10 days unless you get further permission.

Another interesting law that I was unaware of is the use of copying book materials.  These are copyrighted, which I did know, but I thought for educational purposes, we would be exemped in at least a tiny way.  Well, we are.  We can copy in a small amount, let's say a page of a book, but if I wanted to copy a whole chapter, that's a different story.  I would need to gain permission before copying extensive amounts of material.  I was glad that I happened across this one.  I had planned on copying some things for my students in the future, and now I know where my legality lies.

When I would create a presentation for a class, I always wanted to use pictures.  It makes it more interesting for the audience I am presenting to.  I just found out, however, that I can no use more than five pictures from one artist.  I must use different artists to make my presentation more colorful.  If there is a particular artist that I was set on using, I again must gain permission.

All of these laws are new to me, but I am glad that I am aware of them for my classroom in the future.  It is good to know when I can do certain things and when I cannot.  This also shows my students that I value copyright, and if they see how much I value it, then hopefully, they will value it as well.  They will see the importance of not stealing from someone else.

IPod: Music, Movies, and... Math!

After reading an article on Free Technology for Teachers, I was interested to look at upcoming technology to use in the classroom.

I found a blog about using iPods in the classroom to teach kids a concept, the concept of probability.  IPods have really become popular since their first coming out.  Apple continues to surprise us by the new ideas it keeps coming up with and producing for us.  In the blog titled  Using an iPod for probability experiments, a teacher in Australia tells her viewers about her experience with using iPods as a teaching tool. A free application called iChoose is available for anyone with an iTouch.  This application allows people to choose anything from dice to cards to a coin toss to use as a probability problem.  The teacher of this classroom allowed the students to use the application to run several experiments to see if their prediction about the probability of each problem were close to accurate. 

I found this idea to be a great one.  Students today are ready to use their iPods for anything, Internet, music, movies, and games.  This creates a way for students to use something they enjoy with something they are learning.  When these two are combined, the learning process become much more enjoyable for the student and then increases the learning.  If it was made available, I would readily use this application to teach my students probability and other concepts.