Thoughts on Copyrighting in the Classroom

Hmmmm. I'm not sure how I feel about this one. Of course as a professional instructor I will do my best to abide by copyright laws, but, I also feel like fundamentally following these rules could possibly become too much. I wonder at what point does following them to the T become ridiculous? For example, if using one hour of patented music in a media project is an obvious violation of the 30 second rule, what about 5min? O.k. that's still pretty obvious, what about 1 minute then, or 31 seconds? Of course these are really extreme examples, but, technically you would be breaking the law by going over the limit even by that one second.
   I really do believe in the reasonable enforcement of most intellectual property laws. I for one, actually believed Lars from Metallica, had a good point in his fight against Napster and free music sharing (too bad he will always be remembered as being on the wrong side of history-and a dork) Copyright laws protect innovation; and in the case against "free music sharing", I believe they enable outstanding talents' to build their careers and receive the compensation they've earned. However, I do see a difference in an educational setting. I believe educators, administrators, ed. lawyers...etc, should be focused on legally "freeing up", copyrighted material to the highest extent possible, not focusing their energies on enforcing them. I believe the k-12 setting should be considered a shelter from "many" of these laws- that are generally intended to protect profit, not  block students from creating really cool Power Points. As it stands now, because many of the laws are not clear and are not common sense, people will continue to treat them as if they were simply J-walking; ultimately resulting in silly litigation-draining valuable school funds and tax dollars.

Multi-Multi Tasking

After watching the full video of "Digital Nation", it is apparent there is no question about it...humans are  unable to multi-task(even with few distractions) and retain the same degree of concentration as they would if they weren't multi-tasking. Dr. Nass's tests show a significant correlation between distraction and lower performance on a single task, despite the pleas of "cronic multi-taskers" that say otherwise. While the public school system (as far as I know), doesn't allow the same freedoms to their students to distract themselves with digital devices as colleges do, the underlying theme here is that kids are spending an ENORMOUS amount of time with them, and it is effecting their school performance and even their personalities. Their estimated average of "50 hours per week" spent with digital media could cause developmental imparities and, as one interviewe put it, "create people who, 'generally speaking', aren't able to think clearly". The MIT professor at one point mentions that kids "new" shortened attention spans, are causing a shift in the ways teachers have to teach. "Now kids need to be constantly stimulated with media tools like Powerpoint in order to accomodate their constant thirst for distraction" And as one student put it " we now need to be overwhelmed by our teachers in order to distract us from our distractions".
   I'm not sure what the laws are like in universities, but, I'm sure in the public school system, good policy could prevent what was happening at MIT. Although this might become complicated as more and more students bring laptops to class, as we see in the documentary, there are ways of regulating this too. Even though kids nowadays are possibly dangerously overstimulated, they still need to be accommodated with the learning environment that most appropriately stimulates them. And this means nourishing their needs with the technology they  love. There is no going back now, we have entered the Matrix and Keanu cannot save us. So, it seems like finding the best, most effective technology is the answer, not turning the clock back to the "good ole days" of lecture that we too found  incredibly boring.
 

Thoughts About our First Class

I must say that the prospect of actually learning some real skills in the Secondary Ed. Social Studies program is very exciting. Not to be too cynical, but, while I have learned boat loads of theoretical information (much of which seemed like "golden rule" common sense ideas)- the program seems to lack emphasis on "actual" teaching skills. So, coming from me-an older student who has very little practice with state of the art digital technology- becoming masterful in some of these applications, and learning ways to bridge those skills into the classroom is like a breath of fresh air. As a soon-to-be history teacher I hope place a huge emphasis on teaching through the use of various digital mediums. I myself am a visual learner, and as I have matured as a student this fact has become exceedingly clear to me. Seeing a country's boundaries on a map or viewing historical pictures along with an account of an historical event makes a huge difference in the quantity and quality of the information I'm able to retain. If my students are anything like me, It is my hope then to always include some type of visual in my lessons to help them learn as much as possible. Learning how to effectively use various programs like SMARTBOARD and PREZI, in which I can harness archival footage, documentary, music, YOUTUBE, millions of images, etc... should prove to be an indispensable experience.