Blog Journal #3

Copyright and fair use is a tricky thin line that I struggled with a lot when creating my own works. Sometimes things are copyrighted that you didn't even know belonged to someone else. I would essentially teach my students about the importance of knowing about copyright and the consequences that can come along with misusing someone else's work. However, I would encourage further for them to make their own personal creations, and if they do choose to include aspects of someone else's, give credit when it is due. Just don't make someone else's work yours entirely. 

Decreased productivity seems to hinder education the most in my opinion due to technology based off of prior experience. A way I would increase my student's productivity in the classroom would be to assign times within the class to work with no distractions and free time. For example, when doing an assignment, no phones, computers, or any sort of technology unless provided would be allowed, and in this way, more work would get done with no distractions allotted; I've used this technique myself and it has helped a lot with reaching deadlines and productivity. After doing work, there would be a rest period of free time that feels rewarding and worthwhile, as compared to using technology while working in a leisurely manner that hinders productivity. 

I'm not too familiar with ChatGPT, though I've heard of it. A form of AI I'm comfortable using occasionally is Google's Image Search option; you take a photo of something and it scans the web for all sorts of images online with a similar or exact photo. It's helpful in situations where you don't know what something is, or are curious about the value of something. This type of AI could be helpful with learning about plants, for example. A field trip to a park with lots of green plants that look eerily similar can be separated by discovering the name and characteristics of this plant by snapping a picture of it and asking Google for information, implementing a positive AI approach that helps students learn something new. 

Working on the Newsletter turned out to be a lot of fun. I utilized a lot of ClipArt images as well as Word features that I haven't before, which can be useful in the future if I ever need to design flyers with eye-catching graphics for a future job. I would improve my newsletter in the future by using fewer of the shadow features that are part of WordArt. They seemed to make subtitles hard to read at times, and not super kid-friendly. Overall, it was a good experience and I learned a lot of new techniques.