Copyright

As a future teacher it is very important that I am aware of all the copyright laws. I read two articles to learn more about copyright. First I looked at "15 Copyright Rules Every Student Should Know." One thing I found interesting is that copyright lasts throughout the author's life and an additional 70 years after. Thanks to this law, classic novels can be distributed freely in the classroom. It's also important to know that there's a fine line between sampling and stealing. Video and music can be used to a certain extent - three minutes of video and thirty second song clips can be used in student presentations.

Next I looked at, "Copyright for Teachers and School Librarians," and I read some of the rules about watching videos and listening to music in class. A student can bring a movie to school to watch during lunch or free time as long as it's only that child that is watching it. It is against copyright laws to show a movie to the whole class. Teachers aren't even supposed to listen to a CD in their classroom. In both of these cases, money could be made off of the people who don't have the movie or CD, which is why this rule exists. In many of my classes, elementary through college, these copyrights have been broken.

15 Copyright Rules Every Student Should Know
Copyright for Teachers and School Librarians

Holiday Plans

Thanksgiving is one of my favorite holidays! What's not to love about eating a bunch of delicious food with your family? My parents are always the hosts of the Thanksgiving feast, and my siblings, their families, and my uncle and cousin were all a part of the festivities this year. It's always a good time when my family gets together, and my nieces and nephews have a blast. The menu this year consisted of turkey, mashed potatoes, wild rice, lefse, and several side dishes. Now that Thanksgiving is over, Christmas is right around the corner! It's time for the Christmas decorations and music! Bring it on!

Polaroid Pictures

I used Photoshop once again to create more pictures! (Have I mentioned how much I like Photoshop?!) This time I used templates of Polaroid pictures. The smaller ones can either be left in strips or they can be cut out into individual pictures. It's fun to experiment with different templates and pictures to see what new things can be created.

Form in PowerPoint

There are many different ways to create forms and worksheets. I made this worksheet in PowerPoint by changing a slide's size to 8.5 x 11. Forms can also be created on Word, Google Drive, or Photoshop.

VCSU's Education Program

 This was my first semester of classes at VCSU, and it went very well! This semester I was enrolled in four education classes: Introduction to Education, Educational Technology, Math for Elementary Teachers, and Educating Exceptional Students. They are all beneficial classes that I learned a lot from. As I mentioned before, I am also doing a 40 hour practicum as part of my Intro class. There are some things that I've learned in my classes this semester that were connected to my practicum. In Intro we learned about lesson planning and implementing, and in my practicum I was able to observe how my cooperating teacher planned and implemented her lessons. Also, in my classroom many different forms of technology were used such as the Smart Board and use of computers. A lot of the lessons we were going over in math were being taught in my classroom as well. Finally, there were some students in my classroom with exceptionalities such as learning disabilities, English language learners, and giftedness which I learned about in my Educating Exceptional Students class. One thing that I really need to work on to become a more effective teacher is not waiting until the last minute to get things done. I am a horrible procrastinator! Hopefully next semester I will get better at completing assignments early.

Germ Cover

 

This is a time of year where there are lots of illnesses going around. We need to make sure to wash our hands often, and remind our students to do the same. In class we were given hand sanitizer, but it looked very boring. So I created a germ cover on Photoshop, cut it out, and pasted it to the pen-shaped hand sanitizer. I now carry it with me in my backpack so I always have it in class!

Instagram Images

Using Photoshop, I created these Instagram photo strips. These alone are a cute project, but we didn't stop there...We cut each photo out individually, mod podged them to little tiles, and glued magnets on the back. This is a great gift idea!