Student Gender/Sexuality Identity

Warning: This article present some homophobic epithets as examples of intolerant language.

Students of education have a duty to discuss not only racial diversity and cultural diversity but sexual diversity, and all the for the same reasons. Just as a classroom will be ethnically and culturally diverse it will be sexually diverse. Some might argue that young children are not sexually aware yet and therefore do not count in this regard, and that is incorrect. Children raised in families or with family friends of diverse sexual orientations or gender identities are part of this sexually diverse group.

Why does this even matter in a classroom that is not “sex education”, like Language Arts or History? Bullying, for one. Bullying, whether physical or indirect in the form of threats, shunning, or rumors, can leave emotional scarring and hinder a students emotional and academic progress. Epithets like “fag” or “dyke”, “queer” and insulting phrases like “that's so gay” or “no homo” place non-heterosexual orientation in a negative and deviant light. It gives unspoken credence to the incorrect assumption that non-heterosexual orientation is itself deviant, perverse, or even chosen out of rebellion. This way of thinking is called “heterosexism”. Homophobia is the common term usually used for attitudes of perceiving non-heterosexuality as negative and is used when these attitudes manifest in outward expressions in bullying, prejudicial acts, and intolerance. The term has also been applied to those who disdain people with non-traditional gender identities, though gender identity is not strictly related to sexual orientation.

Teachers often find themselves in loco parentis as students come to them for help with peer relationships. Sometimes these are negative relationships where one student is being bullied by another. In some rare occasions the students may seek guidance from a teacher about romantic relationships, especially if the student feels they cannot approach their friends or parents. How a teacher handles occasions of homophobia can impact a student for life.

First, one hopes that a teacher has the education and happiness of their students in mind and would bring little to no gender, gender-identity, or sexuality bias into the classrooms themselves. Joining in with students who are laughing or joking in a heterosexist way can even further isolate and alienate students who are LGBTQA (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgendered, queer, [straight]-ally) or those have LGBTQA friends and family.

Second, teachers must be mindful of the signs of bullying or intolerance and do their best to put a stop to it. Obviously students using epithets in class would be told to curb their language, but teachers must also mind phrases like “that's so gay”. This seemingly simple phrase is perhaps more offensive because it is so simple and widely accepted. Would a teacher turn a deaf ear to comments like “that's so black”, “don't be a Jew”, or “he's being retarded”? No! Those phrases are offensive and used to insult the student and members of those communities by insinuating they are are negative themselves! Then it is neither acceptable to allow “gay” or “homosexual” to be an insult. No one uses “heterosexual” as an insult.

Non-Heterosexuals and people with non-traditional gender-identity exist. They are students in our school and their friends and family are friends in our schools. They deserve the same education, protection, and guidance as any other student.

My college Diversity class listed an amazing list of resources, and I would like to share my favorites with you.

TheYoungTurks - Fox News Bias On Gay Rights In Public Schools

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nB8OqSkadnw

A certainly non-exhaustive list of heterosexism and homophobia, and links for some that you may not have realized was a problem:

1. Bullying (broad term!)
2. "Joking" heterosexist comments or insults. ("so gay" etc.)
3. Housing discrimination.
4. Family planning & adoption discrimination.
5. Marriage discrimination. http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2013/04/24/178765718/violent-protests-in-paris-after-same-sex-marriage-law-passes
6. Negative/Harmful stereotypes in the media. http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/life/movies/news/2009-07-11-glaad-bruno_N.htm
7. Gender/sexuality 'correction' counseling (which are usually abusive and dangerous). http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/05/13/fight-against-gay-convers_n_1513043.html
8. Genderization of toys and stigmatizing those who play with "wrong" gendered toys. http://www.queerty.com/what-does-dr-phil-think-parents-should-do-when-their-sons-play-with-barbies-take-away-the-barbies-20110205/
9. Physical violence.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matthew_Shepard
10. Vandalism (of objects owned or frequented by LGBTQA).
11. Misinformation and Miseducation that "only gays" get certain diseases (HIV). (You don't need a link here, it's a virus, and viruses don't care what sexuality/gender you are).
    

Anthropology of Nature: Week 14 - 20131130

This blog entry is part of a project for the class Anthropology of Nature. 

Class Reflections:

From GoodReads

This week we did presentations based on the book Conservation is our Government Now by Paige West. The book itself is very interesting, especially after taking Environment and Society with Professor S. She was a geologist by training, petrologist by trade, and it was very interesting to see Environmentalism through her eyes, and I think I see that same representation of it through Dr. West's eyes. These educated people are looking at environmentalism from the perspective of one other than the environmentalist. Now, Professor S was an environmentalist, but she showed us much about greenwashing and I had to (and constantly try to) re-evaluate my own views on environmental acts. I did not agree with her all the time, just as I do not always agree with Dr. West, but both tend to have one major view in common: that politicising and governmentalising environmentalism tends to do more harm than good, in one way or the other. This is, of course, a very broad and sweeping generalizations on both of their opinions, and could be struck down when investigated critically, but serves its purpose here.

I will also note that I was grateful that I was not the only person to point out the societal damage caused by the reformation of the Maimafu peoply by the Seventh Day Adventists. I really truly try to leave religion out of conservations and lessons, especially when the conversation is scientifically based, but as soon as you mention politics it's almost impossible NOT to mention religion. Especially when the politickers are the religionists! I did get an odd high-five from a fellow student over "telling it out", whatever that means. I'm not sure if he was more impressed by the religion part or the rest of it, but I would guess the latter.
Some of the other presentations were quite interesting, and some, of course, were less interesting. I had already planned on finishing the book, since it is actually really intersting. Funny how my motivation waned when I realized it was assigned and no longer intrinsic! Weird.

Observations of Environmental Anthropology in the Specimen "Me":
I've been thinking hard about how to articulate what I want to do with Environmental Science: what I want to get out of it and what I want to "do with it" when I get done with the masters. I met with a professor about being my graduate advisor in the program, and the answers I gave did not seem to satisfy him. It also turned out that though he's worked with birds via population genetics, it's not really his focus, and he thinks I should try someone else. Le sigh. It also seems that even though I'm taking the GRE right after finals, he (and it seems most) won't want to risk getting involved with me until after they see the scores. It makes sense, but does put a hitch in my plans. I'm not sure if I'll be able to secure a letter from an advisor over Winter Break, and my paperwork needs to be completed by Febrauary, when they make the funding decisions. They have some assistanceships available, and I honestly cannot afford to go to graduate school without one. At least, not anywhere near full time. I will find a way, one class at a time, but that resulted in a very long bachelors experience I am hoping to not repeat. So. I need to hone my desires, not so sharp as to already have an idea for my thesis, but sharp enough to be able to articulate (better) what I want out of a masters in Env Sci. Apparently, "doing research and applying that research to conservation projects", was not specific enough. Granted. Now to fix it. Soon.

Ethnography of the South Floridian:
I do not have much to go in this slot this week. At least, nothing positive.

I volunteered with MGSA at the football game. We set up recycle bins and Clearstream recycle bins, and then cleaned up after the tailgate parties. Oh, my. I could not believe the waste and garbage. It was... painful. Seriously. The amount of recycleable materials (glass, plastic, and aluminum) just strewn about, near recycle bins, overflowing from black waste bins, was, unbelievable. I found near a dozen 8 oz water bottles, full, unopened, mired in a 1.5ft diameter puddle of uneaten potato wedges and fry grease. It was so stomach-turning that I could not bring myself to recover the bottles to donate somewhere. Just, unbelievable disgusting. The pile itself was less than a foot from the garbage can, which was full, mostly of recyclables. Cigarette butts, glossy postcard-style ads, plastic bits from decorative whatnots, just, everywhere. Broken thong sandals, hats, reusable cups, just everything. It looked like the opening scene from a post-apocalyptic movie, only instead of dead cars on a dusty road it was party waste on a very green lawn. Ugly. It was so ugly. And all those drinking laughing dancing playing people, seem so ugly.

A man threw his cigarette butt on the ground in front of my house, after buckling his small daughter into the backseat of their Honda CRV style vehicle. I used to think that if I was the facist-dictator-of-America, I would have executed people who littered, because it evinced a certain lack of participation in the continued upkeep of civilization and therefore denoted a uselessness in the human. I've grown up a little, now, were I the facist-dictator-of-America, I might just demand a pinky joint. Especially for cigarette butts. Those things take forever to decompose, and a lot get eaten by animals. I could link a bunch of resources and inundate you with my empassioned disdain for the habit and the waste it causes, but I think I've already painted myself in a negative light this time around.
Cest la vie.


But if you get curious, http://www.cigarettelitter.org/index.asp?PageName=Facts

Cradle to Prison Pipeline (Opinion Piece)

Preface: I was asked to write a piece on teaching and the Culture of Discrimination using the "Cradle to Prison Pipeline Campaign" and another video (referenced). This work is what resulted. Though it is riddled with statistics it is an opinion piece and has not been constructed as an educational tool as most of my other blogs have. The content of this piece contains a history of racism and may offend some readers. Please take that into consideration. (However, there are no racial epithets. This piece is "safe for work".)

First I would like to offer my emotional response to the video "Cradle to Prison Pipeline Campaign", from the Louisiana Summit by the Children's Defense Fund in 2012. I realize that I never learned about the period of history talked about in the video. I was not educated on "Jim Crow" laws, though I had heard the term before. The notion that these laws were written and created for the purpose of driving black men into prisons to be rented out to the same jobs they did as slaves, strikes me as so outrageous and ridiculous... by my twentieth century mindset. My first response is outrage on behalf of the black population at the time. Mr. Ronald Mason, President of the Southern University system, teaches that after the Jim Crow laws were abolished the War on Drugs served the purpose of jailing impoverished black men even more effectively (Children's Defense Fund, 2012 Nov 7). According to Mr. Mason 70% of the jailed population of Louisiana is black and 90% of those persons are men. The Children's Defense Fund (2009) states that in America a black boy born in 2001 has a 1 in 3 chance of going to prison in his lifetime; a White boy a 1 in 17 chance. A black girl born in 2001 has a 1 in 17 chance of going to prison in her lifetime; and a White girl a 1 in 111 chance. There is no scientific evidence that black people are genetically predisposed to make bad decisions, so the answer must lie in the American justice system and culture (Children's Defense Fund, 2012 Nov 7).

As a female and a feminist I feel the exclusion of the black female statistic, though I understand that that 90% of jailed blacks are men is significant. In the September/October 2012 issue of "Humanist" it is noted that "despite being less than 9 percent of the U.S. population, black women are the largest segment of the skyrocketing female prison population." "And colorism plays a role in black female sentencing and incarceration rates as well. According to a recent study done in North Carolina prisons, dark-skinned black women were more likely to receive and serve longer sentences than lighter-skinned black women (Hutchison, 2012)." Though feminism and female black imprisonment may seem a separate topic to the Southern University System it is a symptom of the same sickness: the War on Drugs, "suspension and expulsion policies that fuel the school-to-prison pipeline" (Hutchinson, 2012), and a religious culture of negotiated subservience to "morality" in an attempt to offset an overwhelming cultural representation of the hypersexualized black female "role model" (Hutchinson, 2012). I feel that the black female cannot be excluded in this conversation as it seems she has been. All of my following work will be in the view of the "black race", not the "black male", including but not limited to my postulates for solutions.

I asked myself what I, as a future science teacher, can do to protect my students from this culture of discrimination; how can I equip them to defend against a system that seems to be stacked against them? I imagine myself saying "Do cops pull over people of color? Join the police force, be the cop and change why traffic stops happen. Do judges sentence black people more harshly? Be the judge, and sentence people fairly according to the scope of their crime. Be the change you want to see in the world! I felt that people didn't get an appropriate emphasis on science and math in school, so I became a science teacher." Mr. Mason mirrors my sentiment. "What can the Southern University System do for the United States? 1. Increase the number of black [omitted]* bachelor degree graduates. 2. Increase the number of black teachers. 3. Bring truth about the relationships with black [people]** in America. 4. Establish historically black universities as bases for long term systematic change. (Children's Defense Fund, 2012 Oct 7). Immediately curious about why the bases had to be "historically black" if we, as advocates, are trying to bring about racial equality, Mr. Mason says that black universities historically are specifically designed to promote black interest against the system of oppression (Children's Defense Fund, 2012 Oct 7).

School is supposed to be a place to learn how to think critically, to respond instead of react, to prepare to enter academia and the real world with a desire to improve it while enjoying our lives. So many things in the current cultures are stacked against people that are non-white, impoverished, female, disabled, or outside of the local religion... Teachers are the guides of education and end up being the ones that weave global culture through what they permit, omit, and emphasize. If teachers cannot change the parents and their bias, or save the world today, we can equip students with the desire, drive, and tools to change it for themselves and their own children.

End note: I watched Public School Prepares you for Prison Life, by TheAlexJonesChannel and agree that a school throwing children in prison, even for an hour, for minor infractions is a violation of human rights, a striking example of mental torture and abuse, and the indoctrination of the "why bother" mentality associated with the culture of discrimination. However, I could not finish the rest of the video (I stopped at 11:26, and wish I had stopped sooner). I was not dressed appropriately to attend such profound discourse: I forgot my tinfoil hat.


*Omission: The word "male" was omitted in deference to gender equality in education and advocacy.
**The word "men" has been changed to "people" in deference to gender equality.


References:

Children's Defense Fund (2009). Cradle to Prison Pipeline Campaign. Retrieved from http://www.childrensdefense.org/child-research-data-publications/data/cradle-prison-pipeline-summary-report.pdf

Children's Defense Fund (2012). CRADLE TO PRISON PIPELINE® CAMPAIGN. Retrieved from http://www.childrensdefense.org/programs-campaigns/cradle-to-prison-pipeline/

Children's Defense Fund (2012 Nov 7). Cradle to Prison Pipeline Lousisiana Summit. [Video file]. Retrieved from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2eZD0BozS-s

Hutchinson, R. (2012). The “Return” of the Welfare Queens: Feminism, Secularism, and Anti-Racism. /Humanist/ (September/October 2012). 19-20.

TheAlexJonesChannel (2012, Oct 30). Public School Prepares You for Prison Life. [Video File]. Retrieved from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TZv0WgV2oMc

Critical Pedagogy and Social Justice

Implementing multicultural education from the perspective of critical pedagogy, social justice pedagogy, or critical multiculturalism, requires the unlearning of what we think we know and responding to the unique needs of each classroom. Critical pedagogy is the process of learning and unlearning and conscientization. An effective multicultural teacher is constantly unlearning that they think they know about a particular culture, language, lesson, and student. They relearn, not in the light of how they "should" do something but in the light of how something works best at that moment. Truisms are challenged and the effective multicultural educator must be prepared to have what they know challenged, proven insufficient, and rebuilt every year.

Critical multiculturalism is the concept of seeing into and beyond the complexities of multiculturalism. Multiculturalism is more than the celebration of various surface cultures and means to endeavor to understand why people think and act the way they do. This requires the educator to not only look into the cultures of their students but to examine their own national and gender culture and explore how it effects their teaching and interactions.

Conscientization is the power to recognize that you know what you know, and the courage to use it. The educator may encounter various negative social structures that need to be challenged for the good of the students, such as gender or racial socialization, group silencing or marginalizing, thought schooling, and more. Following one's conscientization engages the educator in pursuit of social justice in pedagogy. wink uses a great example in her text "Critical Pedagogy" where an instructor is to teach a lesson containing material they know to be outdated and scientifically inaccurate. Without a developed sense of conscientization the educator may simply slog the students through the material and be done with it. However, the educator CAN bring the fact that the material is outdated to the department and make a case for removing it from the curriculum.

John Dewey "linked education to democracy" expanded the understanding of multicultural education through pragmastism (a philosophy of usefulness and practicality largely based on merit). Dewey felt that to be an effective citizen in a democracy one needed to be educated, intelligent, and participate in social and political life (Russell 2013). Though in 1916 gave little weight to history, except in the light of the present, he felt contemporary citizens and society where complementary. In his work on Democracy and Education he wrote "the one thing every individual must do is to live; the one thing that society must do is to secure from each individual his fair contribution to the general well being and see to it that a just return is made to him (Dewey 1916). By the end of his life and work Dewey sought to provide educators with strategies for reaching students that would honor each child's individual strengths and interests, thereby providing the basis for individualized instruction, multiculturalism, and special education (Davis, ND), and these strategies are inherent in the modern multicultural classroom.

Like Dewey, Paulo Freire was a strong advocate for multicultural education and is best known as an influential theorist of critical pedagogy through his work "Pedagogy of the Oppressed". Freire believed that education was the right of all and not "a gift from the oppressor to the oppressed" (Russell 2013). He advocated for critiquing of the educational system, arguing "there can be no teaching without learning and no learning without teaching". This suggests that if the education system and educators do not learn from and adjust to their pupils the system is ineffective at best. Freire himself admitted that he was forced to update his own book and relearn gender neutrality when women responded to his book negatively; they felt their voice was omitted from the Pedagogy of the Oppressed (Wink 2005). In today's classroom educators recognize his contribution by actively learning from their students as often as the students learn from them. A teacher "unlearns" their schooling, socialization, and tendencies to marginalize or silence, to reach every student in a way that is effective and beneficial.

------------------

Au, W., Bigelow, B., & Karp, S. (Editors), (2007). Rethinking our Classrooms - Volume 1. Milwaukee, WI: Rethinking Schools Ltd.

Davis, Donna (ND) John Dewey (1859-1952) - University, Education, Philosophy, and Students - JRank Articles. Retrieved from http://social.jrank.org/pages/199/Dewey-John-1859-1952.html#ixzz2LIlgas86

Dewey, John (1916). Democracy and Education. Norwood, MA: Norwood Press. Retrieved from http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Democracy_and_Education

Russell, C., (2013). Pedagogy and social justice PowerPoint. Retrieved from Blackboard.com.

Wink, Joan (2005) Critical Pedagogy: Notes from the Real World (Third edition). Boston, MA: Pearson.

Image credit: Tim Raynor at http://philosophyforchange.wordpress.com/2010/09/29/unlearning-in-crisis-and-change/

Reinforcing Ethics: The Risk of Digital Theft

 With so much information on the Internet it is almost no trouble for a student to look up a previously typed and graded paper to turn in under their name. Plagiarism, the act of calling someone elses' work one's own without accreditation or citation, is rampant. According the a study done by the Josephson Institute center for Youth Ethics in 2008, "36 percent of high school students used the Internet to plagiarize an assignment" (Maloy 133). Some plagiarism is accidental;(e.g. a student may find a source on the Internet and not realize that the information belongs to someone else or use a quote, fact, or statistic without knowing they need to cite it). This is not willful disobedience but a lack of education. If adults have a hard time understanding copyright laws then certainly students do as well. Educator James McKenzie lists seven ways for teachers to steer their students away from plagiarism by urging the students to think critically about subject matter instead of asking them to report established facts. His steps include discouraging trivial pursuits, requiring and enabling students to construct answers, assessing student progress throughout the entire research process, and of course, stressing citation ethics (Maloy 134).

ARRR Teachers pirates?

When teachers use digital media in the classroom they may unintentionally set the stage for piracy. Yes, PIRACY! Feathered hats and pegged-legs aside, the using and sharing of digital material without permission has gotten a lot of attention. As digital material becomes easier to share it is not only people with two VCR's hooked up to one television who are illegally sharing these materials. Technically, a person who receives a legitimate digital copy of a book and then gives a copy to a friend while retaining their original copy has committed digital piracy. Is a teacher, then, pirating when they print out a webpage to distribute as a handout to the class?

First, assuming the teacher is not using material from an educational website designed to provide educators with lesson plans, handouts, or discovery information (such as Berkley's "Hands On Universe") and always assume the material to be copyrighted even if it does not explicitly state so. A teacher may use copyrighted material from the Internet without seeking permission from the author as long as the purpose is "fair use". How does a teacher determine if the use of the digital material is "fair use"? Unfortunately a few legal definitions are required:

"Section 107 in Title 17 of the United States Code states that the following uses are not infringement of copyright: the fair use of a copyrighted work, including such use by reproduction in copies or phonorecords or by any other means specified by that section [106], for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching (including multiple copies for classroom use), scholarship, or research." ("Limitations on Copyright").

"Section 110(1) of the United States Copyright Law makes special provision for displaying images, playing motion pictures or sound recordings, or performing works in classes. You may display or perform a work in your class without obtaining permission when your use is for instructional purposes; in face-to-face teaching; and at a nonprofit educational institution" (Hoon4).

 To make these easier to understand Peggy Hoon, J.D. at University of North Carolina, Charlotte, created a useful "Frequently Asked Questions" about copyright law as a way for teachers to avoid the vast tangle of digital copyright laws and use a few steps to determine if the digital material can be used in the classroom. (Link opens to PDF).

Humor can break the H2O(s).

If the digital content the teacher wants to share with the class is not for educational purposes within the scope of the lesson, but for entertainment value (such as a chemistry joke related to the lesson) it is recommended that the teacher share the link or location of the object and have the students access it themselves. It may be of value to do this in order to reinforce the ethics of digital content.

Active education about plagiarism and what is acceptable citation is necessary to prevent purposeful or accidental misuse of content by students. This may require the teacher reminding students either in writing or verbally each time an assignment is given that requires the use of digital material. Another alternative is to construct assignments that require the students to do the same information gathering and research as they would for a regular research assignment but then present their findings and conclusions in a manner that precludes the ability to recite plagiarized facts altogether! One such method posed by Maloy is to have the students condense the material and conclusions into a political cartoon that summarizes a political candidate's stance on a particular issue (Maloy 134).

By being mindful of the digital material presented in the classroom, and actively guiding students to citation and creative presentation methods, a teacher can incorporate interesting and relevant digital media into the classroom to expand the efficacy and interest of the lesson while subtly reinforcing ethical behaviour.


Citations: 

Hoon, Peggy. "Using Copyrighted Works in Your Teaching—FAQ: Questions Faculty and Teaching Assistants Need to Ask Themselves Frequently" J.D. Washington DC: Association of Research Libraries. KnowYourCopyrights.org. 2007. Web. 20 Sep. 2012. <http://www.knowyourcopyrights.org/bm~doc/kycrfaq.pdf>

Maloy, Robert W., et al. Transforming Learning with New Technologies. Boston: Pearson, 2011. Print.

Marble Public Library, "Arggghhhh--Pirates". Web. 31 Oct. 2012. <http://marblelibrary.blogspot.com/2012/01/arggghhhh-pirates.html> (
*Image Source)

Pacific University of Oregon, "Limitation on Copyright". Web. 20 Sep. 2012. <http://www.pacificu.edu/policies/copyright/limitations/Section110.cfm>

Digital Content in the Classroom

 The Library of Congress contains 130 million items to include books, recordings, photographs, music items, and manuscripts. These items require approximately 530 miles of bookshelves! According to the University of California Berkley, as of 2002 the Internet was estimated to contain enough information to fill 37,000 Libraries of Congress! (Maloy 114). Having so much information at one's fingertips seems like a double-edged sword. The answers to all life's questions are open to everyone with a keyboard, but who makes sure it's the right answer? Does someone fact check the Internet? Who owns the information on the Internet? Can teachers effectively integrate the multitude of digitally based content into their classroom safely and legally?

Bill Nye's Climate Lab

The Internet is unfiltered, largely unregulated, and therefore has inadequacies, misinformation, and various bias. However, for the information literate teacher the Internet is a wealth of digital content that can enhance the learning environment by bringing a subject to life. Certain websites (repositories of like information on the "World Wide Web") can act as a sort of digital field trip (Maloy 159). An art class can explore works of art that are currently scattered throughout various galleries throughout the world on Artcyclopedia.com. Students in a geography class can have digital maps of varying scale and detail available for instant recall from sites like the University of Texas at Austin Perry-Castanada's Library Map Collection or Google's satellite driven GoogleEarth. Science classes can use videos from YouTube (a user-based video hosting site) to watch a chemical reaction, experiment, or dissection. Many learning sites, like Bill Nye's Climate Lab, have educational mini-games that teach the players about conservation, ecology, and citizen science. Using this digitally based content allows teachers to really make a subject come alive, and involve the students in a way that watching a video or lecturing can't do.

As digital material continues to become more widely available and include more and more educationally based material, teaching students (and other teachers) to access it safely and utilize it effectively becomes important. School-based computers may limit what sites a student can access through customized web-browsers. Teachers may discourage students from using information from certain sites by refusing to accept those sites as citations for research papers (Maloy 133). According to Maloy's Transforming Learning with New Technologies (2010) information literacy is defined by the American Library Association as "the ability to recognize when information is needed and  to then have the ability to locate, evaluate, and use effectively the  needed information" (p114). Previously the need for information literacy may have seemed to be negligible: educational material came from textbooks that were approved by the school board and a teacher taught primarily from the textbook.

As the Internet becomes prolific enough to threaten the livelihood of textbooks teachers end up needing to evaluate their digitally based additions as they would a student. Is the information relevant? Is the information accurate? Does the medium (video, audio, mini-game, tweet, blog, etc) detract from the overall lesson? Is the teacher permitted to use the material in class as-is, or do they need written permission? Some sites list on their website what form of copyright they hold over their information. All digital media is automatically copyrighted to the author the moment it's fixed in medium (the Internet) but certain laws and provisions govern when they can be reproduced. Streaming videos, playing music, looking at images "live" from the Internet (through an overhead connected to an Internet-connected computer) are all allowed (Hoon p5-6) and are considered being used "as intended". In fact, digital copyright is a hot-button topic as of 2012 and will be addressed in part two of this blog: Reinforcing Ethics: The Risk of Digital Theft.


Citations: 

Maloy, Robert W., et al. Transforming Learning with New Technologies. Boston: Pearson, 2011. Print.

Hoon, Peggy. "Using Copyrighted Works in Your Teaching—FAQ: Questions Faculty and Teaching Assistants Need to Ask Themselves Frequently" J.D. Washington DC: Association of Research Libraries. KnowYourCopyrights.org. 2007. Web.20 Sep. 2011. <http://www.knowyourcopyrights.org/bm~doc/kycrfaq.pdf>