Fourth grade has been learning about copyright law and ownership of printed materials. It seems like the more we learn about it, the more questions we have. I have posted a video below that we will watch, review, and discuss. Then, we'll see what new questions we have. We thought it was interesting that the day after we first started talking about copyright law, there was an article in the New York Times about the copyright law suit that has been brought against Harry Potter author, J. K. Rowling. That will be interesting to follow in the months ahead.
One of the things I like about being a teacher is the constant learning...on my part! I have been trying to learn more about copyright law and creative commons. I have understood the basic idea of copyright law, but a lot of the time I think the students and I are in that shadier in between area where we aren't selling images and the images are being used in an educational setting. In the past I've believed that made us fall outside of the tighter restrictions of the law (or I've chosen to ignore the nagging feeling otherwise). The more I learn and understand, the more I feel like I can explain it to you all in a way that makes sense. Click on this link to see what I've been reading that made it clearer to me. Hopefully we'll get the laptops back soon and can do some exploring and playing with images to understand the legalities better.