Assignment # 5: Legalities Assignment

I found this assignment particularly helpful as I had never considered nor researched in depth, the whole issue of legalities and ethics in education.  As an Ed Tech student, I had worked on projects around privacy, protection, and bullying, but I had never delved into the legal and ethical characteristics of the issues. As I started to read, I was struck by the obvious, that with the world changing so fast, the laws could not keep up with new technologies. What I did not know was that school officials and LEAs were responsible for knowing the laws and interpreting them as best they could in new circumstances. This is a huge responsibility and I believe that AUPs developed as a result of this, not so much to protect the students, but to protect the schools.

When I was student teaching in the spring, I was asked to teach a unit on note taking and bibliographies, and this spilled over to copyright and plagiarism.  I realized that the students didn’t think plagiarism was a big deal, if fact, it was only a big deal if they got caught, because they got in trouble. The honor code or AUP didn’t prevent students from lifting works for their own use.  The students didn’t understand the concept of creators’ rights, honor code or not. To me this was the bigger issue, how to get students to that place of understanding that using someone else’s work without attribution is like stealing, not borrowing. I realized that I myself had never fully understood the copyright issue until I started creating my own resources and saw how protective I felt towards them.  Creative Commons offers students a way to validate and protect their work, and introduces them to the idea of intellectual property. 

The two-term course provides a foundation in computer hardware and networking technologies. Students learn to install, upgrade, and optimize computer operating systems and hardware components and use diagnostic software. They are introduced to networking technologies for local area networks (LANs), wide area networks (WANs), and the Internet.

My project focused on improving technology systems in a vocational school in Bududa, Uganda. The goal of the project was to improve computer and networking functionality.

Quick Prezi on LANs (Local Area Networks) and Solar energy

Technology Project for Vocational School, Bududa, Uganda

The course required students to explore a wide range of assistive technology applications for children with disabilities and consider needs based on the type of disabling condition.

My research evaluated assistive technologies at the Mamaroneck Public Library accessible to the disabled community of Mamaroneck.  

Three students with varying disabilities and challenges were the basis for my research; a quadriplegic, who is wheel-chair bound but mobile, a student who suffers from Cerebral Palsy and has Dysarthria, and a student who has Dyslexia and Hypotonia, which results in Dysgraphia.

Research Outcomes