Sara Tinney
Module 4: Copyright and Intellectual Property
Module 4 focused on copyright, intellectual property and academic integrity (2). Copyright law protects the creative work of any person, so that others cannot replicate, alter or distribute the work without gaining permission from the owner. It is crucial for teachers to understand the copyright laws as they pertain to the "average joe" and educators, as well as the exceptions allowed to educators. Teachers must also understand Creative Commons and its variations, Open Educational Resources (OERs), and Public Domain. All texts/resources have a license and educators are responsible for knowing how to find out which license is in place and if/how that license allows them to use the material in their classroom. Teachers are also expected to teach their students about the different types of licenses and how they affect their use of materials both in the classroom and in their personal lives.
We were instructed to create a poster for our future classroom that either provides citation examples, or explores key concepts of copyright. We were told to create our posters using PosterMyWall, easel.ly, or Glogster.
As part of this module I created a poster of citation examples using different media types to demonstrate how grade 12 students would be expected to cite their sources using APA. Check out my APA Citation poster by scrolling down or look at the original on easel.ly by clicking here.
I wanted to fully explore another poster site, so I chose to create another poster. I created a simple poster with key elements concerning copyright. This poster would serve as a starting point for student research into copyright and other licensing laws. You can check out the Copyright poster I made using PosterMyWall by scrolling down or by clicking here.
I chose to create my citation poster using easel.ly as it was a simple, and easy to use. The site offers a wide selection of templates to start from so you can create a poster by simply replacing information or by altering as many elements as you desire. The site uses a simple drag and drop method and offers helpful buttons to make editing easier (i.e. undo, redo, clone, group, and ungroup. You can also alter the dimensions of the poster by simply clicking and dragging the borders. Together these functions make easel.ly a great resource for creating posters.
I also created a poster using postermywall as I wanted to fully explore this site as a resource I might use in my future classrooms. This site is also relatively easy to use, offering a wide selection of templates to choose from. You can also create a poster using a plain background color, an uploaded image or pictures from Facebook. The easy to use drag and drop editing is paired with a large selection of fonts, effects, colors and other artistic elements that can be altered.
Educators and students should understand concepts surrounding intellectual property and copyright. These concepts can be difficult to apply so having multiple resources can support teaching, learning and applying these concepts. If you are interested in learning more I have created Pinterest boards with useful resources on a variety of topics. You can access my Copyright board by clicking here or you can access my APA Citation board by clicking here.