blog 3

After going over all the copyright laws I was surprised by how many there actually are. As a student you don't think about the illegalities of getting a photocopy of some pages out of a workbook. But as a teacher, if you distribute the material you and the school can get in trouble. I mean I guess there is some leeway because some of the copyright laws were based on "fair use" but I feel like there are still a lot of laws to think about. As a future teacher this will affect what I do in the classroom. There are laws based on what movies can be viewed as well as what and how many photos can be used. This would affect me because if I was making a Powerpoint but wanted to use more than five pictures from one artist I couldn't do that. There's a lot to think about.

Blog 2

The section I reviewed was The 21st Century School. I found it to be really remarkable that through the use of technology the students performing at grade level in math went up from nine to 62 percent in three years. Some of the students said that the use of technology gave them a feeling of independence. However, the laptops were also used for personal use during lessons (AIM, MySpace) which was in one respect frowned upon but it also helped the students learn how to multitask-which one teacher said was a skill needed for future work. I did like how the school used the technology in a variety of different ways, such as checking answers, blogs, Google Docs, and excel. I found it funny how the assistant principal could monitor the students' use of the laptops. I think this school was affected in a positive way by its use of technology. The students are learning multiple skills and are also being challenged. I think this also makes learning more accessible to students because it offers a variety of ways to get a lesson across. I think if technology could be used like this in more schools it would be a positive thing and move students forward.