In my opinion, the most important reason for copyrighting is that it gives the creator the right to charge for their idea. People try to tweak ideas and go off of someone else’s thoughts to make money and since the creator has a copyright, he can sue. Another important thing is that it just gives credit to the creator. It is like publishing a proof for a mathematician; if the proof is never published, someone else can take their idea and get credit for it. I think I will have my students do an assignment on copyrighting laws before I have them do an assignment. I think that it would be very informational for them because all these years that I’ve been citing sources, I never knew how important it actually is. I always thought it was just busy work. If I were to create an invention or write a song, I would like to be recognized for it, I think every person feels that way. That’s another reason why it’s important to follow copyright rules. It’s like the Golden Rule, “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.”
Online safety is an effective tool that can be used to seal an identity and keep sexual predators or stalkers away. A student should never reveal his/her real name, home or school address, or any other personal information online. Students should use their cyber names when doing online activities. However, online safety and cyberbullying are not the same. Cyberbullying occurs when you are getting unwanted attention from any person online. This could come from not using the proper online safety or you could possibly be doing everything right and still be a victim of cyberbullying. It is very common on sites such as Facebook and MySpace. If someone is harassing you online, either block that person or you can even go as far as creating a new account under a new name. I believe that in order to fix cyberbullying, we have to get the information out to families. Some parents don’t know what goes on their kid’s webpage. I think we should have workshops for parents that can help them monitor their kid’s usage online. Knowledge is power in this situation and all it takes is a little bit of effort from the parent.
I learned so much about copyrighting this week. I never knew that it was such a serious issue. I’ve never really known why it was so important to have copyright laws before this week’s lesson. At SFA, if we were caught downloading music using campus internet access, we were told that we could go to prison. I learned very quickly how important copyrighting was after that. I made a 75% on the quiz over copyrighting so I at least passed. I plan on looking more into this because some of the rules were very interesting to me. I thought it was very cool that they have an Anti-Bullying Alliance board. I did not know how much of a problem cyber bullying is and it is scary that my future kids will have to be so careful about what they do on the internet. Even us as adults should be more careful about what we put out there on the World Wide Web.
References:
Carnell, Liz. New advisor on Anti-Bullying Alliance board. Accessed September 28, 2010. http://www.bullying.co.uk/
Copyright Office. About Copyright. Accessed September 28, 2010.
Carnell, Liz. New advisor on Anti-Bullying Alliance board. Accessed September 28, 2010. http://www.bullying.co.uk/
Copyright Office. About Copyright. Accessed September 28, 2010.
http://www.copyright.gov/
Copyright Quiz. Accessed September 28, 2010. http://www.csus.edu/indiv/p/peachj/edte230/copyright/quiz.htm
Copyright Quiz. Accessed September 28, 2010. http://www.csus.edu/indiv/p/peachj/edte230/copyright/quiz.htm
Rushing, Amani. NetSmartz Workshop. Accessed September 28, 2010.
