Blog #3 Message and Copyright Information

I have to admit that before reading this article, 10 Big Myths about copyright explained, I had no idea of all the copyright laws.  I always figured that as long as you gave credit where credit was due that you were safe.  After reading that article I know that what just a myth.  I did not realize that if you talk about a story, you can only mention instances that happened to you.  Just because part of the story was yours, does not mean you can add someone else’s story to make your story sound better. 

I also did not know that you could not record a video singing someone else’s song without permission from that artist.  It makes since to me now that I think about it.  I know that when I was a kid my mom videoed me singing a tone-loc song.  Although we did not have internet back then and we did not post it online for others to see.  I believe when in doubt just don’t use someone else’s work without permission. 

I did not know when a copyright law expires. After reading What is Copyright Protection I have learned that a copyright is good for 25 to 50 years upon creation.  I have to admit I have never really thought much about copyright laws.  I have always tried to give credit for everything I write.  I also did not know that copyright violation was a crime until reading it in the 10 Big Myths.

In my kindergarten classroom I will first educate them about what a copyright is by showing them the copyrightkids.org website.  We will discuss what is and is not a copyright violation by doing some matching games with different scenarios.  I plan to abide by the copyright laws in my classroom as well as in my personal life.  I believe that copyright laws are important, because it make us do our own work and it protects someone else's work.

Blog #2- Content Curation

I have to admit that before reading Teaching with Content Curation, the term curation was not familiar to me.  Content curation is the process of researching and gathering information about a specific subject on the web, and putting it in a central location. This benefits the student by eliminating the time necessary to compile the information on their own. 

I believe that it would benefit the educator as well.   By gathering the information personally they can tailor it to the diverse and specific needs of their students.   Often, this might meet their needs better than a textbook.  In this article, the educator replaced the textbook because she saw that her students were having problems with certain subjects and this could help her zone in on what they needed. 

Because differentiation is important, I plan to use something like Livebinders in my classroom to help me meet the diverse needs of my students.  Livebinders would be a great resource for assessing each child’s needs and creating lessons to meet them.  For example, if I knew that one of my students was having problems differentiating between a “b” and a “d”, I could gather the materials in a Livebinder to assist them. 

I also plan to use to use various interactive content forms such as those used in my SMART Notebook lesson.  In Kindergarten it is common to use sorting for learning shapes, colors, number and letters.  As mentioned in the Rosetta Stone Demo, learning happens more easily when there is a visual aid attached to the concept for easier recall.

In the 2013K-12 Horizon Report, it was stated that it is more common now for students to bring their own mobile electronic devices to the classrooms.  I believe that it would benefit the school and the student greatly to incorporate these devices for the purposes of researching, playing educational games, etc., to promote learning. 

In conclusion, I believe that content curation will be a valuable asset to me in my classroom in the future.

Blog 1: Visual Literacy

I thought this article was very interesting, and I plan to use visual literacy often in my kindergarten classroom.  The article Picture Perfect:  Teaching to Visual Literacy talks about how important it is to incorporate images in the classroom.  Learning is so much easier if the students can attach an image to a subject.   An image gives a student and easier visual to remember that subject.   For example, in my kindergarten classroom; I would use a constructivism method where I would incorporate images with learning the alphabet.  We would discuss at the carpet what the letter of the day is, and then write it on the Smartboard .  We would then brainstorm all the different words that start with this letter sound.  We would then write all those words on our Smartboard.  Finally, we would print out the list of words and go back to our desks and individually draw the letters.  We would put these all together and make our own individual Alphabet Book.  I would also like to use Voicethread and video in my classroom.  This would also be the constructivism method where I would have each of my students answer questions about themselves using video and Voicethread.  Lastly, I would use the constructivism method again and I would have my kindergarten classroom set up to where all my centers are set up with visual cards with images that visually explain what the student is supposed to be doing at that specific center.