Week 4: Copyright Law, Plagiarism, Ethical Law

This week in class and a little bit last week we discussed Copyright law and plagiarism. On our own time we viewed presentations that gave in depth explanations on what copyright is and how they apply to educators. The best rule of thumb is to not use anything that is not yours without asking for permission. Copyright protects the unauthorized reproduction, alteration, and display. If something has as copyright and one of the above is occurs, a fine up to 100,000 can be charged. Creative Commons, a new kind of copyright, provides protection for authors work while allowing them to share their work still. Plagiarism is simply the act of using things as your own instead of being given permission to use them.

This correlates with the field of education in many ways. Educators often use things from different sources to teach the children. A teacher must make sure that he or she has permission to copy pages from books and contain the author's name on things copied. Teachers must be sure to have valid permission on copyright items online as well. If a historical document is showed on the history channel and one does not record the entire viewing, it is actually illegal. It is important that I know and understand copyright laws to make sure I do not get penalized for using sources without permission.

This website has a lot of information for teachers, specifically, on Copyright laws and getting permission to use someone else's work. I found this to be a very useful website.