Week 3: Searching in the Web and Copyright

Current times are so demanding, being efficient with the time management is a must for all professionals and Teacher are not the exemption. In this way, Teachers need to focus in addressing their Students needs by establishing effective aims and making effective lesson plans, based on current information and creative techniques to catch the Ss attention ant keep them motivated while learning. It was stated that internet is the greatest library ever but the most disorganized as well, so Teachers have to be extremely careful when researching and planning classroom activities in the web. First of all, establishing clear aims for the lesson and keep focused in that. Then, in order to save time, Teachers need to master the different tips and techniques we worked on this week, like Google operators, basics, filters and other web tools that help narrow the searching and get faster and easier what Teachers are looking for.

Furthermore, Teachers need to inform and train constantly their Students in the right use of internet, in order to avoid misinformation, misunderstandings and wastes of time (especially during classroom activities). It is important as well that teachers show Students how to identify reliable sources of information from others in the web to avoid misunderstandings. Another interesting learning this week was to know there are specialized searching engines like MetaCrawler, Search-Cube and Dogpile which narrow information from the largest searching engines like Google, Yahoo, AOL, msn, etc.

Finally we were introduced a very sensible issue, Copyright, reinforcing the definition of author’s rights over their original materials. What is more, we had the chance of discussing how copyright could affect Teacher labor inside and outside the Classroom. Basically, Teachers are allowed to do a “fair” use of every material inside the classroom, but it is advisable to ask the permission of the authors to clarify the educational use that their material would have inside the classroom. Outside, is another story Teachers need to model to their Students a right behavior stick to law, so they have to explain in detail the copyright rules to their Students and avoid selling or distributing copyright material to be used outside the classroom unless they have the authorization from authors. Still there are lots of alternatives for Teachers to design homework activities based on free materials or copyright ones but under certain rules. What is more, when working in schools, Teacher need to be aware and totally clear on the School politics regarding copyright issues in order to be aligned and avoid legal or professional issues.