3 March - Digital Story 2

Ridgeline Raccoons are amazing Readers!

I am so excited to do my Student Teaching in Highland at Ridgeline Elementary. Jessica, my field partner, and I went to the school this morning and met the students. We played a get to know you game that we learned in Art class. We also read a pirate book since I was already dressed as a pirate for Read across America day at Lehi Elementary. The students are energetic, smart, and sponges for new information. I hope we can live up to their standards and deliver worthy, memorable lesson plans. We are in the 4th grade and focusing on Social Studies. I can already tell the 3 weeks are going to fly on by.

I mentioned we are teaching Social Studies. Jessica and I will create 5 lesson plans to teach, one of them being a Digital Story. I wish I knew the subject we were doing because I am more than ready to get started.

In the meantime, I am currently learning about copyright acts and fair use laws. This will help me when I use images from the internet to put on my digital story. You can tell if an image is copyrighted if it has: a copyright symbol at the bottom of the picture, a watermark over the image, or if it states the publishers name with the year, it is NOT okay to use. However, if none of the above apply, you should be safe. You for sure know it is safe to use if there is a link to download it. If ever in doubt, you can contact the person or company to see if it is okay to use their image.

Which brings me to another point. Did you know it is illegal to lend a DVD to a friend or family member? It is true. When you purchase a DVD you are agreeing that it is for your own personal use. Which also means, it is illegal to show a movie that I have purchased for my family in my classroom. If you break the law, you can be fined up to $250,000.

It seems that the copyright laws just can't keep up with technology. You would think that internet users would be honest and live by the golden rule. It is breaking the law when you download free music and access dishonest sites. This is not helping anyone. Not only could you serve jail time and be charged with hefty fines, but think of the artist you are ripping off. Would you want someone to rip off your work? No. If you like an artist enough to want to download his/her music you should be willing to pay a minimal fee. The same goes for software. If it is a program you'll use that will help your business, save you time, and benefit you, why not support the programmer that made it available to you in the first place?

I guess I'll get off my soapbox now. Stampin Angie here, signing off!