Blog Journal #3

     When it comes to technology in the classroom, there is plenty of controversy to be raised. Figuring out what role it should have, the day to day amount of use, and how much teachers should devote to instructing students on technology skills is an important and relevant endeavor in the year 2023. But even once we reach a decision on how computers and tablets and online platforms will be incorporated into our classrooms, there still remains some concerns and hurdles to address. Chiefly among these, are academic dishonesty and decreased productivity. It begs the question, "How can we as teachers address these issues in our classrooms?" Can we find lasting solutions, or are we simply supposed to mitigate the damage?

    To those two issues, I have a solution for each. One of the things that my high school anatomy teacher did during my junior year, was to have cloth- hanging phone pockets on up on her back wall. We were not required to keep our phones in our assigned pocket, however, for every time that we did, we received a mark, much like keeping track of attendance. At the end of the nine weeks, our amount of marks determined how many giant fuzzy dice we were able to roll. She then multiplied the total number by ten and added it to out lowest weighted section, (i.e. classwork, homework, quizzes). Ultimately she left the choice up to us to intentionally put away our devices and limit distractions in the classroom. Though she offered an incentive, she made us take ownership of our learning and our attention in a way too. Especially since we were all upperclassmen, and every teacher at the school had different preferences in this area, I found this to be a far more effective method than forcing a "no devices" rule onto the students reinforced through negative punishment. To academic dishonesty, setting the tone in the classroom, defining the expectations and providing all the tools that students need to do well is a great way to preemptively limit the perceived need for students to cheat, whether it be on assignments or tests and quizzes in order to succeed. 

    Another area that is of great importance to teach and share about in the classroom is copyright and fair use. I feel that the best way as a future teacher to deal with this in the classroom is to simply face it head on. Only by getting educated yourself and then taking the time to teach your students, can you best ensure that they will be able to responsibly navigate the online world in relation to these two concepts. Up until this past week, I had a very limited working knowledge of the distinction between the two and the definition of fair use in general. I have come to learn that copyright is the system in which things that an individual creates, stays owned and controlled by the creator. For instance, when producers want to adapt a book series into a Hollywood franchise, they need to obtain not only permission from the author, but in many cases pay royalties, a percentage of the earnings, to the original creator, in this case the author. Contrastingly, fair use is the term used for when there are exceptions to the copyright rules. Some such of these being teaching, criticism, or new reporting.

Lastly, the results of my first major assignment for EME2040, the newsletter design. I found myself certainly getting more comfortable with the program, including how to save files in a particular format and shade in objects versus texts. Overall, I think that I could have improved on some of the alignment and spacing. In complete honesty, the two column feature made things very difficult for me and it was something that I felt like I still did not really understand well even after completing the assignment.