A6.3: Copyright

Ashley Pence

September 26, 2007

Copyright and fair use (2005).  Retrieved September 26, 2007, from http://fairuse.stanford.edu/

Harper, G. K. (2001). Crash course in copyright. Retrieved September 26, 2007, from http://www.utsystem.edu/OGC/IntellectualProperty/cprtindx.htm

TAP:  The topic of this article is copyright laws and fair use policies concerning copyrighted material.  This article is for no particluar audience, but should include those who are interested in using others work without infringing upon the copyright laws.  This article explains how to avoid copyright infringement by correctly and leagally using someone else’s material.

Claim:  Someone owns just about everything, in other words it is copyrighted.  Fair use lets you use their things, however not as much as we’d like to.  There are cases when you have to ask for permission directly from the owner and this can be aggrevating at times.  The thing to remember is that one day you may also be the owner of a work that someone else wants to use.  (2001)

Evidence:  Copyright protects works such as poetry, movies, CD-ROMs, video games, videos, plays, paintings, sheet music, recorded music performances, novels, software code, sculptures, photographs, choreography and architectural designs.   (2005)  A copyright would seemingly last forever, but there are rules and guidelines as to how long something is protected.  As of 1977 and after a copyright lasts as long as the author is living and 70 years after that.  Surprisingly if something is published and the author is anonymous or uses a pseudonym then the copright lasts between 95 to 120 years based on when it was published.  (2005)  There are multiple dates that alter the length that something is copyrighted. 

In order to use a published work without permission the work must be in the public domain.  In most cases it is in public domain because the copyright has ran out.  The date of publication is the key factor in determining if something is in the public domain.  If you are uncertain the copyright office can check to see if a work is in the public domain for the low, low cost of $20 per hour.  New laws have been made concerning copyright laws and things such as playing a musicians work of art in restaurants fall under these new laws.  The following is an excerpt from the Stanford Copyright and Fair Use article that will give you insight on just how specific and confusing these laws can be.  You will see that it could be very easy to get tangled in a lawsuit due to laws such as these. 

“Under new rules which are tacked on to the term extension law described above, restaurants and bars under 3,750 square feet or retail establishments under 2,000 square feet who play the radio or television in their establishments won’t have to pay fees. Regardless of size, all restaurants, bars and stores will be exempt from paying fees if they have no more than six external speakers (but not more than four per room) or four televisions measuring 55 inches or less (but not more than one per room). These rules only apply for establishments that play radio and television. Establishments that play pre-recorded music such as compact discs will still be subject to licenses. Some legal experts have argued that the small business exemption may violate international treaties and a court challenge to the licensing exemption is expected. “  (2005)  All I can say is, wow!

Connections:  As a student who frequently uses media as a source of information I am now afraid of how in depth some of the copyright laws are.  Is it possible that every individual can ask follow rules such as these and not infringe upon them in some way?  However these laws are made to protect and support the original owner and for good reasons.  It just makes everyone aware of how careful they need to be, otherwise they may end up in a lawsuit.

This text is just a reminder of all the warnings and rules that have been laid out before me as a student that guides us in protecting ourselves and the owners from copyright infringement.  As a future professional who will be performing research it will be necessary to be aware of laws such as these to look out for everyone’s best interest. 

A5.5: Participation Memo

Ashley Pence

September 22, 2007

Aims and Objectives:  To say that this has been a busy week would be an understatement.  Therefore my goals and objectives have been spread out among several days this week.  As always my goals are to complete each assignment and gain a better understanding of what the articles and assignments discuss. 

Declarative Knowledge: I was successful with learning from the readings about social bookmarking, virtual meetings, and virtual worlds.  All three of these things were things that I had never accessed before and I now have a much better understanding of them.  I also visited my wiki to update my research question and add some other questions that can help me decide if my current question is a good one.  By performing library searches based on my topic I learned that using different key words can completely change your results within the searches and therefore it is important to change your keywords accordingly.  Something that will also help me throughout my researching was subscribing to a newsreader.  While I can subscribe to fun things that interest me I can also subscribe to things that pertain to my research topic. 

Procedural Knowledge:  Based on the readings I was informed of who, what, when, where, and why I would need to use social bookmarking, virtual meetings and virtual worlds.  From the social bookmarking article and chapter I learned how to save my favorite or useful sites to a public place that allows others to access what I have saved and for me to access what they have saved based on our interests and key words.  The article on virtual meetings taught me that as a student I could take part in meetings such as this that would save time and travel for me as a student or perhaps one day as a speaker.  The article on virtual worlds was very interesting and gave me ideas of how I can participate in real life scenarios but not have to worry about my real life mistakes.  They help you learn from your mistakes and don’t necessarily negatively affect you.  By performing my searches based on my research question, revising my research question and subscribing to a newsreader I learned that there are multiple sources that can help me gain as many sources as possible.

Conditional Knowledge:  The knowledge I have gained this week has prepared me as a pre-professional to increase and better my research skills and make it easier on me while at the same time producing a better project.  All of the readings and assignments for this week have shaped my way of thinking and will continue to as a professional on any project, meetings, or sharing of information that I may do.

A5.3: Library Searching I

Ashley Pence

September 22, 2007

Resources

1.  Database:  Academic Search Premier

Keywords:  Appalachia literacy

Cooter, K. S. (2006). When mama can’t read: Counteracting intergenerational literacy. Reading Teacher, 59(7), 698-702. Retrieved September 20, 2007, from the Academic Search Premier database.

2.  Database:  Academic Search Premier

Keywords:  Appalachian illiteracy

Wood, R. L. (1993). Our golden road to illiteracy. National Review, 45(20), 54-58. Retrieved September 20, 2007, from the Academic Search Premier database.

3.  Database:  Academic Search Premier

Keywords:  adult illiteracy

Sticht, Thomas G. “Stopping adult illiteracy at the source.” Reading Today Jan. 2004: p 15. Academic Search Premier. 20 Sep. 2007 <http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=aph&AN=11658577&site=ehost-live>.     

4.      Database:  Academic Search Premier     

 Keywords:  literacy, appalachia

Puckett, A. (1992). Let the girls do the spelling and Dan will do the shooting; Literacy, the division of labor and identity in a rural appalachian community. Anthropological Quarterly, 65(3). Retrieved September 20, 2007, from the Academic Search Premier database.

5.  Database:  Academic Search Premier

Keywords:  illiterate families 

Fratt, L. (2003). Early literacy intervention. District Administration, 39(7), 16-17. Retrieved September 20, 2007, from the Academic Search Premier database.

 

A5.2: Chapter 6 – Richardson

Ashley Pence

September 20, 2007

Richardson, W. (2006) Blogs, wikis, podcasts, and other powerful web tools for classrooms.  Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin Press.

TAP:  Richardson’s chapter six details the ways in which working on the is no longer a thing done in isolation and that it can become a thing of collaboration and social in nature if you choose for it to be.  This text appears to be geared towards teachers who may be interested in adding features such as social bookmarking into their classroom.

Claim:  This chapter provides various ways to social bookmark and allows us to choose among any and all of them.  However, no matter which one we choose te idea that we now use social networks to tap into the work of others to support our own learning is an important concept to understand.  In Richardson’s opinion it’s just another way that the Read/Write Web has changed the way we work and learn.

Evidence:  I found it very interesting that Richardson feels that the purpose of the internet is no longer our ability to publish as much as it is to share, connect and create with many others of like minds and interests.  It’s as though we no longer have to come up with our own ideas, just log on and access everyone elses.  I may sound somewhat bitter, but I like the idea, however I know many teachers do not and that’s why we have to be careful of how we use the information we obtain.  Richardson expresses social bookmarking in a very unique and accurate way.  He says that we’re creating our own community of researchers that are gathering relevant information for us.  When Richardson explains the types of social bookmarking sites that do this for you I realized that that statement is very true.  The first site he mentions is Furl.  By visiting their site you can just drag and drop their link to my toolbar and it is there for when I want to save a page that I find interesting.  Furl’s most interesting aspect is that it saves the entire page so when the page “linkrots”, or is no longer available, I still have the information that I found in the first place.  My favorite thing about Furl is that you can save from any computer and retrieve from any computer that has Internet access.  (2006)  It was always so frustrating when I knew that I had added a page to my favorites list on my home computer, but I was in the library on campus.  Richardson was also right to say that a students favorite part of Furl would be te fact that when we are finished collecting information from specific sites, Furl has a way to export all of the sources we use into any format.  (APA, MLA, etc…)

Connections:  As I mentioned above, Furl has plenty of ways to make social bookmarking useful for students such as myself.  Researching has never been one of my favorite things to do and if something can make it easier, then i’m all for it. 

To connect with other texts that are similar to Richardson’s I think of the article I read on 7 things you should know about social bookmarking.  I had a base of knowledge on what social bookmarking was, but Richardson’s text gave me a more in depth look at specific sites that are for social bookmarking.

Richardson mentioned how great Furl was in sharing information with colleagues.  As a future speech language pathologist (SLP) I will be working in collaboration with other SLP’s and setting up a Furl account would be a great way to share by adding resources that you feel have helped you and they can add resources that have helped them.

A5.2: 7 Things You Should Know About Virtual Worlds

Ashley Pence

7 things you should know about virtual worlds (2006, June).  Retrieved September 18, 2007 from http://www.educause.edu/ir/library/pdf/ELI7015

TAP:  Virtual worlds are a type of online environment different from any other site that allows you to interact with one another.  This article focuses on college age students using this type of environment to create learning in new and inventive ways. 

Claim:  Through the use of virtual worlds unintentional learning occurs.  Students such as myself can discover and create knowledge not for its own sake but in order to accomplish something they want to do, resulting in stronger comprehension and deeper knowledge. (2006)

Evidence:  Virtual worlds allow the user to create and become another character based on what interest we may have for using a program such as this one.  What we become in this virtual world reflects what we aim to do or wish to do in the real world.  The two main reasons to interact in a virtual world are for gaming reasons or for learning purposes.  Creators have found that the benefit of virtual worlds lies in the lack of the game structure.  Several examples were given in the article that consisted of students becoming avatars and acting out situations that occur in their field.  This gives them practice and allows them to make mistakes and learn from them without actually involving any real person.  This article considers this type of learning constructivist learning.  The learners can freely make decisions and interact with others, initiating and directing their own learning.  This environment encourages students to experiment and learn by trial and error which I feel is the best way to learn.  However this type of trial and error learning is not feasible in the real world. (2006)

This article also mentioned the use of virtual worlds by businesses who create virtual worlds and see how other avatars respond to their business that has not been formed yet.  The business is pretty much tested before it actually takes the plunge in investing time and money.

Connections:  As a student I am always looking for an easy way to learn class material.  My ways of learning typically consist of attending class, taking notes, studying and praying.  These all work out well for me, but I have found that there are things that are sometimes hard to comprehend unless you experience it yourself.  For example, in my Audiology class we had to perform hearing screenings on our partner.  We practiced excessively and this helped tremendously to gain a better knowledge of how to perform a hearing screening.  However, this was with a classmate and I didn’t have to worry as much about messing up, except for my grade.  I do know that in the future I will be performing hearing screenings, evaluations and therapy sessions  with actual patients and that can be a little scary.  The idea of practicing in a virtual world seems like a great thing for those of us who will be interacting with real people as a part of our profession.  It would still require us to be conscious of our actions and the words we use when interacting with patients which is a skill that we will need to apply when we are in a real office setting with real patients.  (2006)

A5.2: 7 Things You Should Know About Virtual Meetings

Ashley Pence

September 18, 2007

7 things you should know about virtual meetings (2006, February). Retrieved September 18, 2007 from http://www.educause.edu/ir/library/pdf/ELI7001.pdf

TAP:  This article is geared toward college students and teachers who would be interested in online courses, obtaining information through distance learning or collaborating of projects without actually meeting in person.  The purpose is to drive home how effective a resource like virtual meetings are when it comes to distance learning.

Claim:  Virtual meetings expand educational offerings through distance programs, bring more oppurtunities to remote learners and encourage greater numbers of potential students to take advantage of those oppurtunities. (2006)

Evidence:  We’ve all heard of chat rooms and online courses.  This is what came to my mind when I began reading about virtual meetings.  In the past I have chatted, but it was never for the purpose of gaining educational information, unless it was for a quick question about something on our homework of exam.  This article goes into detail about how we can take advantage of virtual meetings in order to relieve some of the stress of actual face to face meetings.  Those stressors include inconvienent times, traveling and any other related factor that deals with meeting in an actual classroom.  It also indicates that online classes can be made into more helpful sessions if the instructor is actually there in real time and can comment and answer questions rather than just writing assignments and notes to the students.  This can all be done with a webcam which allows the students or other individuals to communicate and see the instructor or other mentors over distances.

Connections:  I would first like to say that it is amazing what you can do on the web these days.  As I was reading this article I thought of how far we’ve came from the invention of the telephone which allows us to talk and interact over distances.  It amazes me that we’ve progressed to communication over the web in ways that we can see and interact pretty much in person.  This makes me think of the Jetson’s cartoon.  They have a lot of high tech, future things such as flying cars and showers that do everything for you.  I realize that we have not made it that far as of yet, but with technology such as virtual meetings, it seems like we are getting closer and closer to living like the Jetson’s everyday.  This text does not necessarily relate to any other texts that I have read, but it does relate to information that I have heard about virtual classrooms.  I have never experienced a class such as this, but I do have friends who participate in them.  This type of class allows the teacher to teach in multiple classrooms, but only be in one by way of virtual meetings.

In the future I imagine that I will partake in continuing education classes that occur in places that are much farther than I am willing to travel. This option of virtual meetings will hopefully become more popular among universities and allow me to participate in classes that otherwise I could not attend. 

A5.2: 7 Things You Should Know About Social Bookmarking

Ashley Pence

September 18, 2007

7 things you should know about social bookmarking (2005, May). Retrieved September 18, 2007 from http://www.educause.edu/ir/library/pdf/ELI7001.pdf

TAP:  This article has been written to help readers such as myself and others that are frequently bookmarking pages of information to create a source that is easier and more efficient in bookmarking.  The purpose is to inform readers of this social bookmarking and encourage the use of it.

Claim:  Social bookmarking creates a true web of resources and connections.  One that is not limited to individuals and their folders but represents the interests and judgements of a community of users. (2005)

Evidence:  Bookmarks are ways of saving web addresses that interest you in order for you to easily gain access to them in the future or to share them with others.  That seems like a pretty good thing, until you see what social bookmarking does.  Social bookmarking allows users to save to a public website which you have subscribed toand tag the bookmarks with keywords.  Those keywords become important when yourself and others begin searching that certain social bookmarking site.  Social bookmarking sites indicate who created each bookmark and give you access to that person’s other resources.  This way you can connect with others who have similar interests in the topic of your choice.  It also allows you to see their other bookmarks and to find information related to your main topic of interest which can lead to new directions that can be valuable. (2005)

Connections:   One of the downsides to social bookmarking is that this means you will yave just one more place to store information that must be maintained and updated.  This is a problem for me.  If you could first of all see my hotmail email account and my email Marshall account.  I have a tendency to save everything when it comes to emails.  I guess you could say i’m an email pack rat.  I would like to brag on myself somewhat pertaining to what I did today.  I cleaned my Marshall account out!  I had kept every email that pertained to this class, if you are in CD 315 you know what i’m talking about.  There were ten pages of emails that I had kept until I asked if they were necessary to keep and was informed that they are being archived and there was no need to keep them.  I was quite proud of myself.  I’m down to only five pages of email now.  In my hotmail account however, i’m not as neat.  I have folders to organize, but I have fallen behind and have emails that date back to high school (i’m in my 5th year of college).  So I need some work in that area, BUT, I’m almost afraid to take on any other organizational task.  Perhaps this class will help me attain the trait of organization. 

This information correlates with previous articles that I have read pertaining to organization and sharing of interests.  It is a lot like articles that I have read about wikis in the sense that information can be found by searching a database and then collaborate with others to find other areas of interests that can lead you to successful research.  However social bookmarking does not require editing in order to collaborate with others.

As I mentioned above I need help with my organizational skills.  Social bookmarking seems like a great source to help me attain that skill.  Not only will it help with my organization skills, it can lead me to obtaining pertinent research information that I may not have found on my own.  This could come in very handy when I am performing research in the future as a speech language pathologist.

A4.8: Participation Memo

Ashley Pence

September 13, 2007

 Aims & Objectives:  My personal goals for this week were to first of all take a deep breath and then breathe out.  Yeah, that second goal is some what important.  I have found that sometimes we can become overwhelmed and forget to do that second part.  Although the beginning of the week looked grim, I pulled through and accomplished every reading and assignment that I was given.  These were all to my advantage, because looking back I can see all the knowledge that was gained from those exercises.

Declarative Knowledge:  This week I gained knowledge in several areas that can benefit me on the worldwide web.  I now have a better understanding of wikipedia, RSS, how to use search engines, how to better develop my research question and how to actually subscribe to a mailing list.

Procedural Knowledge:  When reading about wikipedia I learned that it is not something that should be taken for granted.  It has a lot of great information, but I have to keep in mind that it is for collaboration and is up for editing at anytime by any random person, (educated or not).  The RSS articles taught me that I do not have to spend large quantities of time searching the worldwide web for information that interests me.  I can simply search once, subscribe to that sites mailing list and only recieve information that I want.  This saves valuable time and energy on the net.  Richardson’s text expanded on RSS and explained how to find, subscribe and keep up with them.  The tutorial on search engines gave facts about search engines that I would have never dreamed possible.  The biggest shocker was that not every search engine has the same results based upon their databases and their “spiders”.  This led to my investigation of the three main search engines, Google, Yahoo and Ask.com.  While searching for my last name and my research topic the results became evidence of what the tutorial told me about.

Conditional Knowledge:  The knowledge and skills that I have acquired this week will help me not only now, but in the future as well.  I can use this information for the research I am performing now as well as all the research that I will be doing in the future that pertains to my field.  If I were to perform research before these articles and tutorials I would be less successful with my results and final project simply because I did not know how to use the search engines correctly.  Now that I have this background I feel more prepared to complete future research.  

A4.3: Reflection on Searching the WWW

Ashley Pence

September 13, 2007

After reading and browsing the articles and search engines that were given to us I came to the conclusion that the entire time I have been searching on the web I have been doing it with limited results.  The fact that the articles noted that Google was the number one search engine did not surprise me.  This is a search engine that I use everytime I am curious about something or need to find something.  That typically happens everytime I access the WWW or atleast once a day.  The search engines Yahoo and ask.com that came in second and third are search engines that I don’t even use.  I came to the realization that Google is the only search engine I use and after these articles and overviews of other search engines I will no longer let that be true. 

The first thing that surprised me is that search engines don’t even search the web, they search their databases.  These databases are selected and built by computer robot programs called spiders.  These spiders in turn only find pages with potential inclusion or something that is already in the search engines database.  I learned that less than half of the searchable web is fully searchable on Google.  This really hit me and made me realize that when I have done previous searches on Google before I was really cut short from the abundance of information that I could have found had I used other search engines.  Another surprising thing is that there are webpages that are invisible that the spiders can’t access.  These webpages can however be accessed through subscription to certain sites or organizations in which I have access to by being a library card holder.  Search engines such as Academic Search Premier and ERIC allow me to access those invisible pages.

When I was using the search engines on the Itools site I was surprised to see what all you could search.  I went from searching for information on my research topic to finding the address and phone number of several people I know.  That was actually pretty scary because it gives you a map and everything.  Luckily I wasn’t on there yet!  Keith Stanger’s surpluss of search engines left me somewhat confused, but I did happen to find the search engine, Educause, that is used to find the 7 things to know articles.

By accessing these search engines and gaining a background on search engines I have realized that for future searching I will not just use Google.  Although Google can be quick and typically turns back good results, it is not the only way to search.  I had already used search engines such as Academic Premier and ERIC for other projects, but now that I know how beneficial they are in helping me find invisible webpages I will use them more often.

A4.2: Chapter 5 Richardson

Ashley Pence

September 11, 2007

Richardson, W. (2006) Blogs, wikis, podcasts, and other powerful web tools for classrooms.  Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin Press.

 TAP:  The topic of this chapter was RSS and the fact that Richardson says it is the new killer app for educators.  This chapter was geared toward educators and focused it’s discussion on convincing educators of it’s helpfulness.

Claim:  Weblogs, wikis and other applications have created mass amounts of information on the worldwide web.  Since there is so much to be discovered it is hard to stay on top of all the information, even if you are only accessing sites that you like.  RSS is a way to simplify all the information that you receive.  RSS stands for real simple syndication and just like other syndications the information comes to you instead of you going to it. (2006) 

Evidence:  The RSS creates simple ways to access information that you have subscribed to.  An aggregator or feed collector, which is a type of software collects information from the feeds that you have subscribed to about every hour and when you open up your aggregator the information is there. (2006)  This cuts the time in half that you would normally spend checking those individual sites.  In many ways this allows you to gain more information in the sense that most people won’t take the time to search every site each time they access the web.  By taking a little time to subscribe to those feeds, you save tons of time later and gain a wealth of knowledge that may not have been gained before the RSS. 

I realized while reading this that I don’t know what types of things that I would be interested in exactly and for that matter where do I find these feeds to subscribe to?  This chapter explains that you can go to several sites such as bloglines.com and search for any topic you can think of.  This site also contains top blogs that other people have subscribed to as well to get you thinking of what you may be interested in.  (2006)  Richardson also expressed his reasoning for RSS being such a great resource for students.  The fact that RSS feeds can send current events or topic specific research can lead to helping the lack of media and information literacy skills students have. (2006)  He also states that an RSS is like doing research 24/7, only you don’t do any of the work, RSS does it all for you. 

Connections:  In my prior experience with the worldwide web I have found that I only access a few sites while I am on the internet unless asked to access others.  It is hard for me to think of sites that I might be interested in even though I know once I found them I would visit them on a regular basis.  I have tons of interest, but the internet is so overwhelming at times that I don’t even mess with it.  However, if I were to subscribe to certain feeds that interested me, then I would not have to be concerned with the overwhelming feeling of the mass of information the internet holds.  This chapter expanded on the article I read about 7 things you should know about RSS.  It gave me RSS’ background, how to create one and where to find information to get me started with the RSS.  In the future I could find the RSS a very helpful resource that could relieve some of the stress I have when it comes to researching.  Just like the Richardson said, “it’s like researching 24/7 except RSS does it for me.”