Copyright Issues in the Classroom

     I think the idea of Creative Commons is really great. It works to allow internet users the openness to share their own work as well as learn from and gather other people's work. Especially in the world of education, it is important for teachers to be aware of copyright laws and in turn, teach their students about the dangers of using material from the internet.
     I particularly enjoyed the article about the 5 myths surrounding copyright infringement on the Internet. These five myths would be an important source to use in the classroom because many students probably succumb to many of these falsities surrounding copyright infringement. I, admittedly, believed many of the myths that were provided. I was aware that pulling images from Google without sourcing was most likely an issue, but, like myth #4 points out, I never thought too much about it because others were doing it all the time. Many of my past teachers use Google images in PowerPoint presentations often, which gives the false impression that this is acceptable to do. But as the Myth presentation points out, "It's not uncommon for people using images stolen from Google to be smacked with a bill for unpaid license fees" (http://brittanysbest.com/2013/08/5-copyright-myths/). This is something I certainly want to inform my students about in hopes that they can avoid this fate, as well as respect the people who create the original images used on Google.
     The idea of Creative Commons is especially intriguing as an educator. I was unaware of the fact that when you create a song or video and upload it to the internet it automatically creates a Copyright- own all rights reserved, in order to protect your material from being used. So when you actually WANT people to share and use your content, Creative Commons is the way to get around this. It provides free copyright licensing that allows you to choose specifically which portions of your content you want to protect and which you want to share. As advocates of the service explain in a Youtube video, Creative Commons "saves the world from failed sharing" (http://drapestakes.blogspot.com/2008/12/educators-guide-to-creative-commons.html).  It exercises our copyright in more ways, more simply. And most importantly, it creates the sense of an online community, an idea that we, as teachers, always want to be instilling in our classroom. Creating a community in which students can freely and safely share their work, and in the process learn from it, is an advantage for the Internet-riddled education world.

image from: http://virulentwordofmouse.wordpress.com/2012/06/17/what-does-the-average-surfer-know-about-creative-commons/

Imbedding Practice (Blog 2 Makeup)

English 28 classical mythology introduction from Mariel Jeanne Seras

Teaching English by 2012sjr

Implementing Indian Education For All

I found looking through the Indian Education for All Standards for Alaskan educators was especially interesting. The following five standards are the expectations for Alaskan Educators to help incorporate Native American studies into their curriculum. I appreciate that they recognize teachers who follow these standards as "culturally-responsive" educators. Especially in communities with high percentages of Native American populations (such as Montana and Alaskan towns), this "cultural-responsiveness" is easily accessible and extremely important.

A. Culturally-responsive educators incorporate local ways of knowing and teaching in their work.
B. Culturally-responsive educators use the local environment and community resources on a regular basis to link
what they are teaching to the everyday lives of the students.
C. Culturally-responsive educators participate in community events and activities in appropriate and supportive
ways.
D. Culturally-responsive educators work closely with parents to achieve a high level of complementary
educational expectations between home and school.
E. Culturally-responsive educators recognize the full educational potential of each student and provide the
challenges necessary for them to achieve that potential.

As an English teacher, it's easy to incorporate Native American literature into curriculum. In order to meet standards in both traditional and modern Native American education, books from older and newer authors can be used. For example, books such as "Bead on an Ant Hill" by Delphine Red Shirt and "Fools Crow" by James Welch, are excellent works describing traditional Native American culture. You can also introduce modern Native American texts such as "Diary of a Parttime Indian" by Sherman Alexie, which describes more modern challenges for Native Americans in a prominently white dominated society. The combination of these three texts would supply a well rounded view of Native American culture and the challenges and successes they've achieved throughout their many years in the North Americas.

In terms of achieving standard B, English classrooms have great incentives to visit/participate in community events. Events such as pow-wows and poetry readings or cultural presentations are great opportunities to bring students on field trips.

Web 2.0 Tools

After some exploration on "The 100 Best Web 2.0 Tools" website, I came across a couple useful looking ideas. The first is called Teaching Channel, a site that contains hundreds of useful videos focusing on teaching strategies. The videos include interviews with teachers about an array of topics including ELL students, project-based learning, motivation and student-advisor relationships. The videos also include a lot of in-class examples, filming of real students in classrooms. There are many lesson plans demonstrated through these videos, which I will find super useful in the future when I'm building my own classroom units.

The second 2.0 tool that I found to be pretty cool is called Eyejot. It's a site that allows you to send short video messages to anyone (but in this case, students) on your computer or handheld phone. This could be really helpful for teachers who have students who respond more effectively to verbal instructions rather than ones written down. Sending video-assignments might create a stronger sense of relevance for students, thus encouraging them to get more of their homework done on time and/or understanding the assignment more thoroughly.

I also found a couple articles on the Spigot website useful/entertaining. The first one, (although I'm unsure of whether it's a joke or not) is pretty hilarious for an English major like me. Rick Anderson writes on the Scholarly Kitchen blog that, "At this year's annual meeting of the American Library Association in Las Vegas, there will be a special performance by the Oxford Commas, a band composed of librarians and university press editors who are dedicated to raising the grammatical standard in popular music." It's brilliant. They feature grammatically correct songs such as "Whom do you Love?" and "Julio and Me Down by the School Yard." Would be a great and funny article to show to a classroom full of English students.

The last article I found was one in which I very much disagreed with the point of view. It came from a personal blog that talks about educational transitioning toward a more technological world. This particular article was about the shift from reading in books to reading on "machines." But he argues for the advantages of reading from computers/kindles/iPads for many reasons, while making some pretty outlandish statements. For example, he writes what if, "The machine could learn their readers preferences, nuances, 'intelligence', etc. and tailor assistive materials and experiences to the reader to maximize enjoyment and comprehension?" If the machine did indeed advance enough that it could do these things, then the role of an English teacher would be nonexistent. And students would spend an even greater time on screens instead of communicating with real humans. I think the role of paper books is important, and no matter how advanced these "reading machines" can get, they will never replace the traditional role of text on paper.

Attempt at Pecha Kucha

Screencasting presentation from Kelton Enich

Although I never got the entire screencast recorded, I did complete the powerpoint as well as the oral presentation. I chose to make a presentation on Shakespeare and his famous Globe Theater. I do plan on completing the real screencast by the end of the semester, considering all the work is done, I just need to record it. The part of the project that I've already completed pretty much just required skills and knowledge that I already have from making presentations in the past. It is the recording that takes some learning. It was interesting to think about "flipping the classroom" while making the powerpoint, knowing that the kids will never see their teacher's face throughout the entire unit. I have to be a lot more thorough when putting it together. I feel like flipping the classroom might be kind of hard with some areas of English. But the prospect of having the students learn information on Shakespeare at home and then reading one of his plays in class is quite exciting. It seems like it would be time-effective. I don't know if I'll use the classroom-flipping tactic super often in my own classroom but I do see the value in making a few throughout the course of the school year. Really big units that require extra instructional time outside of class could be aided greatly by this format of teaching.

Awe(some/ful) Powerpoints

Some VERY BAD powerpoints:

Bad PowerPoint Example from middletonat

This powerpoint fails on multiple levels. First of all, the title is boring and nondescript, giving us absolutely no information as to what the presentation will be about. Far too much text covers each slide and when images are used, they're overwhelming and crowded into the space.

Sample slides by Garr Reynolds from garr

This powerpoint give some good examples of how bad presentations can be fixed by simplifying text and finding appropriate pictures to use with the information. Using one quote or one piece of information on each slide is plenty enough to keep an audience entertained.

Bees - An example of a BAD PowerPoint Presentation from jmarc38

This powerpoint illustrates how inconsistency in font/color/image greatly distracts from the point that's trying to be communicated in the presentation. Now here are some examples of GOOD powerpoints:

How To Make A Good PowerPoint from Seth dickens

This powerpoint uses a creative and unique approach to introduce the topic of "change." The first ten slides or so are almost exactly the same, except one word is changed, giving the effect of a film.

Exploring "To Kill a Mockingbird"

There are many ways to further explore books read in the classroom. Some of these ways can be achieved by digging online for outside resources other people have put together. I have attached a slideshare presentation on Harper Lee's famous book as well as a Youtube video that could both be used in the classroom.

To kill a mockingbird from jppt1


Also, this cool video HERE>