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.