Copyright & Fair use, Netiquette, and Cyberbullying.

Once again this week I find myself learning something I had no clue about.  As I think about my career as an educator, I consider all the ways I want to inspire my students, I have all these plans about the type of teacher I want to be, and I know that technology will play a big part in that.  Once again in this class I find myself learning information that is completely new to me.  Copyright & Fair Use.  I do not know why I've never thought about these issues before, but to be perfectly honest, I just haven't.  I can see myself in my classroom, using powerpoints, blogs, webpages, etc to teach my students.  Using powerful quotes by famous politicians, educators, philosophers, and the like that have inspired me, but never once have I stopped to think - is it legal for me to create such things using their speeches, quotes, lyrics, etc?  I did find that the basic guidelines in an article I read are very helpful in helping me to understand what I can fairly use in teaching. From these things, I think I would be able to make a good decision on what to use in the classroom.  I know that using copyrighted material is ok, given that:
- I am in a place that is for learning, and the material will not leave that facility.
- I have to use a legitimate copy of whatever I am using, obviously some bootlegged copy of something is not under any copyright of fair use law.
- I can use it so long as what I am using is not available for sale for classroom use.


As you can see from above, what I really learned about in this lesson was copyright and fair use, however, I do feel that netiquette and cyberbullying are very important topics. I just think they are more common sense than education copyright laws.  Netiquette is that same thing as traditional etiquette, when you go online you treat people the way you want to be treated, and you treat them the way you would if you were in a face to face situation with them.  It is no different and I will definitely teach my students about netiquette considering my stance on technology in the classroom.  Cyberbullying is a major issues in today's society.  Kids are using the internet as a hurtful instrument.  From playing terrible games on social media, to posting derogatory and slanderous statements about other students - it needs to be stopped.  After learning about all these things I definitely feel that netiquette and cyberbullying are issues that should be addressed in the classroom, and I think it is important for teachers to read up on copyright a fair use so they don't break any laws, and so they know they using the full range of resources provided to them.