I chose to follow the blogs of Kevin, Peter, Rochelle, and Heather. I am also following the blog Moving at the Speed of Creativity by Wes Fryer. As I searched Wes Fryer's blog I found a post he provided on finding free e-books online, which do not infringe upon any copyright laws if they are old enough, yet sites like amazon will still try to sell them for full price. He gives a full explanation on how to sync them to your e-reader. Fryer also posted a blog about using copyright-friendly images effectively in presentations. He discusses how to use Fair Use rights as learners and educators. He also posted a video about Fair Use created by Professor Eric Faden of Bucknell University. I encourage everyone to check it out at:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CJn_jC4FNDo

I think this video is pretty hilarious and relevant to the blog posts I read written by my classmates.

Like the video blog post we all seemed to have learned what Fair Use was and how we will be able to use that in our classrooms to be able to provide students will materials that are okay to use for learning if it is done so in a responsible and appropriate way.

While doing our copyright research we seemed to have all learned a lot about copyright laws and Fair Use, but maybe still have some leftover questions. Heather was left wondering what the actual guidelines were to determine what can and cannot be copyrighted and how copyright infringement is caught and punished. Rochelle seems to be intimidated by the constantly changing copyright laws.

While I don't have the answers to those questions and am also intimidated by the changing copyright laws, I do believe it is important for us as educators to stay connected to these laws as they change and make sure that we are modeling responsible behavior when it comes to copyright. Like Peter writes about in his blog, it is important to teach children the proper rules for citation to avoid any larger problems later in life. In the early childhood years this can best be taught through modeling appropriate behavior when it comes to Fair Use and Copyright Law. Being informed is the first step in that direction.