Blog Post #3

     Within my own classroom, I think it would be necessary and fair to follow fair use guidelines throughout the creation of any assignments or resources I intend to give to my students. Ensuring that I properly source classroom materials and resources and give necessary credit ensures that my students will understand the importance of doing the same. For example, throughout the composition class through which I first learned of copyright and fair use, my teacher's pictures on instructional slides and any academic materials presented to us were always done so with the credit visible and the source available to us. Following his example, I would like to present the same diligence in following copyright and fair use guidelines when creating my own instructional materials for my students and teaching them such credits' importance. Throughout our class discussions on fair use, I have learned more detailed technicalities of finding the correct licensing for your individual work and found the website through which we chose our own incredibly interesting.

    Although I understand that as technology progresses, finding ways in which to address and prevent academic dishonesty in the classroom will also get progressively more difficult, I feel the only solution to solving such problems would be taking a more engaged and personal approach to teaching or assigning activities which encourage creativity above all else. By heavily observing my students' work by walking around, engaging with specific students in class, or growing to know their writing styles and the ways in which they engage with activities, I feel it will be easier to prevent academic dishonesty as I will better know my students' personally. If an assignment seems foreign to the student who turned it in and does not follow their regular writing style, I will be more inclined to check for academic dishonesty and thoroughly analyze the work. Using this strategy, I also intend to implement incredibly creative and hands-on activities which could never be recreated or produced by programs such as AI or online resources. In doing so, I will create a more fun and engaged class while also ensuring students are doing their own, personal work without the help of dishonest technology. 

    Because I am still slightly unaware of some resources and formatting options Word has to offer, throughout the creation of the Newsletter Design Assignment, I was able to become more familiar with the software's formatting and design-related aspects I otherwise would have never used. In the future, I hope to create a more cohesive and structured newsletter and possibly include an introduction-like section for parents to better understand my goals as a teacher and grasp the current curriculum. Learning the importance of including aspects of the newsletter such as scheduling and lists in a formatted, easy-to-read way will be useful as I create more newsletters for my future classroom to ensure parents are able to understand the information being presented. Similarly, learning how to create a permission slip is also something I intend to use in my future career as making sure the correct information and contacts are included is crucial to the safety and structure of any future field trip.