Blog Post #2

I've used MS Word almost constantly as a student. I've used it for essays, drafts, notes, viewing/editing documents, and many other things. Office in general has been used a lot throughout my career as a student, but I'd argue that Word has been used most often. I've seen my teachers use it to create documents with instructions, creating a syllabus, editing our work, or making handouts to aid in a lesson.

In an educational environment, I have only regularly encountered copyright and fair use in terms of avoiding plagiarism through proper citations. Of course, I have also taken classes in the music business field that have educated me on copyright and fair use in terms of the music industry, but that isn't something I'd consider deeply part of my educational experience. Since middle school, I have learned how to properly cite pictures and information in my essays or projects. Even before then, I at least had a bibliography with links at the end of anything I turned in. As I teacher, I would regularly stress the importance of proper citations as my teachers have for me at the beginning of class and before things are turned in, especially for middle and high school students who are still getting the hang of things to an extent. I would also never use someone else's work in my materials without proper citations and would do my best to make sure most of my materials are my own in the first place to avoid complications.

The implementation issues addressed are all valid issues that need to be discussed. Some may be hard or impossible to avoid, but I feel like preparation can help students to avoid them to the best of their ability. An example of a legal issue would be software piracy. In this day and age, piracy is a widespread issue because it is incredibly easy to do. I think the important thing to do with students is to explain the legal repercussions of pirating so that they are aware of the risk. As a teacher, I cannot control what my students do in their spare time, but I can educate them. A social issue that is addressed is Cyberbullying, and I feel that this cannot be discussed enough. At this point, everyone part of the technological age has probably experienced or witnessed Cyberbullying at some point to some degree. This is so much harder to prevent and control as a teacher, so I think it would be best to simply have a no-tolerance policy and to make it easy to report it anonymously to me if someone witnesses it so no one feels to afraid to "rat" people out. Lastly, an ethical issue would be academic dishonesty. It is absolutely unacceptable for a student to copy work from another student or from the internet. This inhibits their learning and presents work from someone else as their own. To avoid this, I would explain to my students how to properly cite and also put parameters in place in terms of what amount of direct quotes is acceptable in an assignment.