Give it a break..

The digital age has changed how educators can teach so much, and mostly for the better. I remember in grammar school having to go to the library to get books for resources, looking through encyclopedias and still being foreign to the internet. Citing these sources was easy to do because you knew exactly where it was coming from. That doesn’t make me want to go back to the days where Google wasn’t the go to for almost everything. The internet has made finding information easier and faster, but dealing with citing sources and copy right laws is a problem that sometimes is hard to deal with.

According to the article Applying Fair Use to New Technologies, it seems that there are so many rules and regulations for a teacher to simply use an article or story for her class. I understand that someone needs to be credited for their work, but if they are using a story or poem for a lesson and they are only allowed to print half of it out or only one copy without there being a copyright issue, how is anyone ever going to learn? The new fair use guidelines seem to be something that is beginning to solve the problems that are being seen. The old guidelines that were needed to be followed were seen to be too restrictive for educators and librarians which I can totally understand. At least with them, educators are able to get a good portion of whatever source they are wanting to use and be able to present enough for a lesson without issues. This also has lead to using multimedia as projects in the classroom to get around some of these limitations.

Using multimedia as a lesson taught by the students is a great idea for them to research and makes it their own. Sure, the students will still need to display their sources at the end of their presentation, but it still gives them the freedom to use more sources. In school, it is all about the education and not about stealing other people's work. I think that having so many restrictions on using certain sources is taking away from the students in a negative way. If they are able to get as much information as possible about a topic, it can only benefit them. Restricting educators on how much they can show and print out doesn’t seem necessary. It is all for the greater good and for the lesson. It shouldn't have very strict limitations and it should be encouraged. 

The internet has made finding articles and stories so much more accessible and now we are able to find almost anything we want. Copy right guidelines shouldn’t be the reason children can’t take home a story or print out the whole poem, or listen to the whole song. It is all a learning experience and I feel that making these rules against it is only hurting the kids. Education should be number one always and getting as many resources to learn from shouldn’t have restrictions, it should be an open door to learn.