Blog 2: Are Our Educational Materials Copyrighted?

Welcome back, everyone! As you all know, we all learned some new specs, and reinforced others, on the famous Office software, MS Word. I have been using MS Word in almost every type of setting ever since I can remember. When it comes to an educational setting, I have used MS Word mostly to write papers for class. Although I prefer to handwrite notes, MS Word has been helpful in note taking, especially when there is an established list of items that will partake in the note taking (like a final study guide). I've seen my educators use word to create documents like quizzes/tests, study guides, worksheets, etc. I assume that utilizing MS Word might be better at times, since some of the materials out there are copyrighted.

Speaking of copyright, I never actually put into account before that some educative materials handed by our educators in the past may not be fair use. My only experience with copyrighted material in an educational setting, that I know of, is when I was in TV Production in high school. For the videos we were producing in class, we could technically use any type of song or footage that we had to our disposal, since it wasn't being used for profit. However, our teacher, very intelligently I may add, encouraged us to only utilize material that was labeled "royalty free". This suggestion made sense because it is important to teach the students that 1) copyrighted material costs money and 2) their videos can still be amazing even with the royalty free footage. If I was a TV Production teacher, I would provide the same knowledge about royalty free material. As a matter of fact, I have a further solution to the copyright dilemma, as well as other technology implementation issues.

Along with providing the knowledge of useful royalty free material, I will also provide the students with subscriptions (whether paid by me or provided by the school) to websites holding copyrighted material that, once subscribed, is fair to be implemented in student videos. Now, some of these subscriptions come in layers and layers of premiums, therefore it is important that students do not abuse of the advantage they would be provided with. In order to keep their academic honesty intact, they would need to sign a syllabus in the beginning of the class semester detailing their knowledge of academic honesty in the classroom. And that goes for any type of honesty that belongs in a classroom. While academic honesty always has a place in a classroom setting, my copyright idea only works if I can break the digital divide among students and provide everyone with a computer to produce videos with. Granted, twenty Macs aren't cheap, however, one computer for a group of four to five students never became a huge issue when I was in TV Production. If anything, it taught me how to collaborate with my fellow peers and to trust their ideas and creativeness. Therefore, I believe this to be a good solution, one that will shape the students with important values for their future.

Until next time!

-The Tank

Blog 1: Am I Digital Native?

Welcome back, guys! Hope everyone has been doing well out there. 

Talking about the topic of students and teachers in the classroom, I believe it to be influenced by the rapid of growth of technology itself. It is hard to find a place in America that has zero technology presence (not including the Amish), and I am assuming its because no one can pinpoint them! Technology is the driving force of our society, and the more it grows, the more we'll see it in different settings. To give you an example, I used to go to church and sing along with the booklet, but now I just watch the lyrics on the TV! The extension reaches classrooms since, as the main hub of knowledge for the future leaders of America, education needs to stay with the times and develop alongside it.

Switching gears to the standards of the International Standards For Students, there were two that stood out to me pretty quick. The Creative Communicator standard popped out to me mainly for the communication aspect. As educators, our job is to communicate information well enough to make the students think for themselves, develop new ideas, and innovate their future for the better of themselves and the world. If it were up to me, I'd prioritized this standard with tools necessary for the student to grow their knowledge on the subject matter. Now, a standard I don't particularly feel too strong about is the Global Collaboration standard. I love to collaborate and I think that group assignments teach something more than just the assignment demanded; how to trust people and show people that you can be trusted. My issue with collaboration has always been when its online-only. I've only had tough group projects when it came to online-only assignments, since communication tends to lack more in those types assignments. But, I'm just a digital native. I can learn quicker than older generations to utilize this standard to my advantage, I just choose not to do it, allegedly (Prensky).

Speaking of digital nativism, I think the word really does apply to my generation of technology users. A digital native is someone who was born into the current generation of technology advancements. A native in the language of technology, if you will. Digital immigrants, on the other hand, are the generation that needed to learn how to speak the language. In class, I've noticed much of my teachers using technology with a sort of "accent", if so to speak. I wouldn't say is a technological struggle as much as the skills may not come as fast to some teachers than others. Nevertheless, I have yet to encounter a teacher, of any age, who refused to use technology in an educational setting. Have any of you? I am curious because it boggles me a bit to know that they are out there, but at the end of the day, everyone is comfortable with the way they do things. I mean, I would love to keep up with technology changes by the time the new generation of students is walking through the proud hallways of American schools, but I am not sure just how fast technology will move from here. All we can do is hope that we grab on tight enough for the ride!

ISTE Creative Communicator Resource

I decided that if I were to teach a class, I would love to teach media editing. I truly believe that editing is learned in two ways, hands-on and visually. Therefore, my resources will reflect that. I found two resources that I believe to help aid the learning of media editing students. See below for links:

How to Use Premiere Pro for Beginners 

This is a link to YouTube videos, many of them very educational on he basic  (and some advanced) aspects of using Premiere Pro as an editing software.

Adobe Site

Here is the site where a student can download all the software, specifically Premiere Pro, that Adobe offers in order to create content.

The Tank Blogs

Hello and welcome to the Tank's blog. My real name is Francisco Javier "Frank the Tank" Nunez. You may call me Francisco, Javier, Frank, Frank the Tank or just Tank... I swear I will answer to any of those. I am a South Floridian born originally in Venezuela. I am currently in my third year at FSU working on a Bachelor's in Arts and Science and Business Management. It's been tough. Not to say any Bio or Law majors out there don't have it tougher, I admire their hard work. Aside from school, I also work for the Tally Mac Shack, which is a mac and cheese... let me say again, its a MAC AND CHEESE food truck that runs around Tallahassee every week. It is a great job minus the calories.

When I think of technology being used for education in my past experiences, I can think of two of the top of my head. One instance where technology was used in a educational setting that I was in is through the use of projectors. When I lived in Venezuela, not even the nice schools had projectors. Coming to America and being able to learn not only through a dry erase board, but a projector screen as well was a miracle of knowledge. Another time I can think of where we used technology was when the teacher went on a website called Kahoot.com, where the students would join through their phones and answer questions to review for exams.

I have to be honest, this class was on a list of courses I could take in order to fulfill course requirements for my major, therefore my only knowledge of what this class involved came from the title. I hope to learn what this class is specifically. After attending the first day, I definitely had a bigger grasp of what the class encompasses. Another thing I would like to learn is how this class will help me in the future, therefore I am very excited to see what this class has in store!

Signing off... for now,

The Tank