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Monday, September 16, 2013
Saturday, September 14, 2013
Learning Journal #3 - Cut and Paste...The Words We Hear So Often!
After reading Lisa Renard's article "Cut and Paste 101: Plagiarism and the Net", I decided to focus my blog posting on "cutting and pasting". It is true that the original form of "cut and paste" came about in the early years of school. Students would have to use their scissors to cut out shapes or other pictures and paste them on their paper. It was a simple task for students to complete and done by many.
As technology evolved, a new form of "cut and paste" came about. You could select a piece of text with your mouse, drag the cursor over, and select copy. Pull up the application you needed to use and click paste. Boom! Everything was right there just as simple as your original cut and paste but just a little less messy! It became the quick and efficient way to copy and paste. However, this "cut and paste" wasn't seen to be proper in the eyes of educators and businesses. But aren't students doing the same thing that they did before just minus the glue?
Students would cut out someone else's work, glue it on a paper, and claim it as their own. Aren't students doing the exact same thing but with the use of a computer?
Now don't get me wrong, I am by no means saying that copying and pasting someone else's work is ok. But I see how students don't recognize cutting and pasting as a problem. It was ok for them to cut and paste in elementary school, so why is it not ok anymore?
I think the main problem is that students don't know how to properly cite someone else's work and honestly don't even know that they have to. Renard discusses that there are three types of internet cheaters. You have the "unintentional cheater" who has never learned how to properly cite their work and when confronted don't understand that they did anything wrong (Renard 1999). Your second type of internet cheater is known as the "sneaky cheater". The sneaky cheater understands that plagiarism is wrong but also knows how to get away with it (Renard 1999). The last type of cheater you can find is the "all or nothing cheater". These types of cheaters wait till the last minute and then decide to find a paper online and turn it in with their name on it (Renard 1999). I feel that the majority of students fall into the unintentional cheater category. I know that in elementary school or even middle school no one taught me how to properly cite my sources or give credit to the author of the paper. It wasn't until high school that I was given even an ounce of instruction on this. If students are only showed a few times then they won't remember it! No one got on their bike for the first time without training wheels and road for hours and hours and never needed someone to show them again. Its unrealistic to think that students who are unintentional cheaters can learn if they aren't given opportunities to have guidance from teachers on this topic.
Renard also discusses some ways to prevent this online cheating problem. She suggests for teachers to avoid the common writing prompts and make the prompts related towards the students. Ask students higher level questions that relate from the text to themselves. Those questions would be more beneficial to the students in the long run anyways.
Will internet plagiarism every go away? My answer would be no. There will always be people who are in a bind that need something quick or the lazy student who doesn't care to do the work to start with. However, I feel that if we can show the unintentional cheater how to properly cite and give them less chances to use the generic teacher assignment then there would be a decrease in internet plagiarism.
We need to start in the elementary school level guiding students through properly citing sources and giving credit to work that someone else has done before we allow them for years and years to get away with using the "copy and paste" technique throughout school.
Now my question is...how can educators explain the difference between scissors and glue sticks and the mouse and internet?
Reference:
Renard,L. (1999). Cut and paste 101: plagiarism and the Net. Educational Leadership, 57 (4), 38-42.
http://abbynet.sd34.bc.ca/~dereck_dirom/035EEE2E-002F4E0D.2/Cut%20&%20paste%20101.pdf
As technology evolved, a new form of "cut and paste" came about. You could select a piece of text with your mouse, drag the cursor over, and select copy. Pull up the application you needed to use and click paste. Boom! Everything was right there just as simple as your original cut and paste but just a little less messy! It became the quick and efficient way to copy and paste. However, this "cut and paste" wasn't seen to be proper in the eyes of educators and businesses. But aren't students doing the same thing that they did before just minus the glue?
Students would cut out someone else's work, glue it on a paper, and claim it as their own. Aren't students doing the exact same thing but with the use of a computer?
Now don't get me wrong, I am by no means saying that copying and pasting someone else's work is ok. But I see how students don't recognize cutting and pasting as a problem. It was ok for them to cut and paste in elementary school, so why is it not ok anymore?
I think the main problem is that students don't know how to properly cite someone else's work and honestly don't even know that they have to. Renard discusses that there are three types of internet cheaters. You have the "unintentional cheater" who has never learned how to properly cite their work and when confronted don't understand that they did anything wrong (Renard 1999). Your second type of internet cheater is known as the "sneaky cheater". The sneaky cheater understands that plagiarism is wrong but also knows how to get away with it (Renard 1999). The last type of cheater you can find is the "all or nothing cheater". These types of cheaters wait till the last minute and then decide to find a paper online and turn it in with their name on it (Renard 1999). I feel that the majority of students fall into the unintentional cheater category. I know that in elementary school or even middle school no one taught me how to properly cite my sources or give credit to the author of the paper. It wasn't until high school that I was given even an ounce of instruction on this. If students are only showed a few times then they won't remember it! No one got on their bike for the first time without training wheels and road for hours and hours and never needed someone to show them again. Its unrealistic to think that students who are unintentional cheaters can learn if they aren't given opportunities to have guidance from teachers on this topic.
Renard also discusses some ways to prevent this online cheating problem. She suggests for teachers to avoid the common writing prompts and make the prompts related towards the students. Ask students higher level questions that relate from the text to themselves. Those questions would be more beneficial to the students in the long run anyways.
Will internet plagiarism every go away? My answer would be no. There will always be people who are in a bind that need something quick or the lazy student who doesn't care to do the work to start with. However, I feel that if we can show the unintentional cheater how to properly cite and give them less chances to use the generic teacher assignment then there would be a decrease in internet plagiarism.
We need to start in the elementary school level guiding students through properly citing sources and giving credit to work that someone else has done before we allow them for years and years to get away with using the "copy and paste" technique throughout school.
Now my question is...how can educators explain the difference between scissors and glue sticks and the mouse and internet?
Reference:
Renard,L. (1999). Cut and paste 101: plagiarism and the Net. Educational Leadership, 57 (4), 38-42.
http://abbynet.sd34.bc.ca/~dereck_dirom/035EEE2E-002F4E0D.2/Cut%20&%20paste%20101.pdf
Sunday, September 8, 2013
Learning Journal #2 Blogging and the Positives
Blogging was a term I was familiar with before this class but honestly thought it would be way too hard to start or that I would just find opinions on topics rather than helpful or useful items. Well, I was WRONG!
A few weeks before the summer ended, my school decided to host a professional development on blogging. I decided I would go since I would have the iPads in my classroom and I am trying to incorporate as much technology as possible. As I sat in the room I realized that maybe this whole "blogging" thing wouldn't be so bad. I created a blog for my class so that each week a student could write a summary of what happened or what they learned in class that week. School has been in session for 3 weeks so far and I haven't had the chance to have my students blog yet and its killing me!
When our first assignment came out to create a blog I was excited...now I would be forced to use one and couldn't put it off any longer with other things that seemed more important. I started to look around at some other blogs and low and behold I found some awesome apps that teachers around the country are using in their iPad classrooms! Some of these apps I had never even heard of but they are wonderful! Bloggers around the world were showing projects that students had created via their blog using apps that they had recently talked about. You really believe the benefits when you look at end results.
I stumbled upon one blog from Marygrove College discussing blogging in the classroom and the benefits that it can have for children. I decided to recap their five main points and elaborate on how I feel about them as well.
1. Blogging Encourages Literacy Across the Curriculum
This is so true! Students in my class can blog about reading but then turn around and blog about how to answer a difficult math problem. Students can record themselves and input their voices or podcasts into their blog. Students can explain a science experiment and share with others in our class. Not only can students write about what they have done but blogging allows students to then discuss with fellow peers about their projects or ideas. That collaborative discussion is easily completed through a blog. Even the shy students would start to feel less embarrassed about speaking in front of others but more confident in their ideas being presented.
2. Blogging Reaches Out to the "Others"
The Online Grad team explains that the days of one size fit all classrooms are over. Kinesthetic learners will love the hands on approach to their learning and that this may be one of the first assignments that they actually enjoy or turn in on time. Blogs are not your traditional assignments that teachers give in the classroom. The fact that they can be creative in the design of their blog as well as what they incorporate into each of their posts is all up to them. It puts the learning back in the hands of the student!
3. Blogging Allows Freedom
A few weeks before the summer ended, my school decided to host a professional development on blogging. I decided I would go since I would have the iPads in my classroom and I am trying to incorporate as much technology as possible. As I sat in the room I realized that maybe this whole "blogging" thing wouldn't be so bad. I created a blog for my class so that each week a student could write a summary of what happened or what they learned in class that week. School has been in session for 3 weeks so far and I haven't had the chance to have my students blog yet and its killing me!
When our first assignment came out to create a blog I was excited...now I would be forced to use one and couldn't put it off any longer with other things that seemed more important. I started to look around at some other blogs and low and behold I found some awesome apps that teachers around the country are using in their iPad classrooms! Some of these apps I had never even heard of but they are wonderful! Bloggers around the world were showing projects that students had created via their blog using apps that they had recently talked about. You really believe the benefits when you look at end results.
I stumbled upon one blog from Marygrove College discussing blogging in the classroom and the benefits that it can have for children. I decided to recap their five main points and elaborate on how I feel about them as well.
1. Blogging Encourages Literacy Across the Curriculum
This is so true! Students in my class can blog about reading but then turn around and blog about how to answer a difficult math problem. Students can record themselves and input their voices or podcasts into their blog. Students can explain a science experiment and share with others in our class. Not only can students write about what they have done but blogging allows students to then discuss with fellow peers about their projects or ideas. That collaborative discussion is easily completed through a blog. Even the shy students would start to feel less embarrassed about speaking in front of others but more confident in their ideas being presented.
2. Blogging Reaches Out to the "Others"
The Online Grad team explains that the days of one size fit all classrooms are over. Kinesthetic learners will love the hands on approach to their learning and that this may be one of the first assignments that they actually enjoy or turn in on time. Blogs are not your traditional assignments that teachers give in the classroom. The fact that they can be creative in the design of their blog as well as what they incorporate into each of their posts is all up to them. It puts the learning back in the hands of the student!
3. Blogging Allows Freedom
Blogging now becomes a less threatening environment. Blogging allows students to publish their own thoughts and opinions without the fear that they may be wrong. Now of course the teacher can look for the proper grammar and sentence structure because I feel that every student whether they are writing their own opinions or writing opinions of others should be able to write properly. I feel though that students will know they are posting it online where others can see they will take that time to make sure that it looks the best it can look. With this freedom that blogging allows it also can tie in the "netiquette" for use of the internet. Many students wouldn't even think there is such a thing because they haven't been exposed to it yet. Blogging will allow students to learn about proper netiquette.
4. Blogging Builds Computer Skills
As our world continues to strive to a technology based center, computers and computer skills will be the way of the future. Blogging allows students to be able to use a computer, type, insert graphics, videos, or hyperlinks into their postings. Students have to learn how to properly cite images and words that they use from others via the internet or books. Students have to learn which media tools will help get their point across the best. Therefore they start to become "global digital citizens".
5. Blogging is Fun
Blogging is still new in the classroom and I know that when I mentioned the word "blogging" many of my students perked up because they weren't sure what it was. When I explained that one person a week would be able to write online what our class learned for the week they were jumping to see who would be the first person. If I can start them young enough I believe that writing will be a subject that these students may enjoy much more.
I truly believe that blogging has a special place in the classrooms of K-12 teachers. The benefits that can be seen just by having a classroom blog seem immense. Imagine having students so excited about sharing their learning that they can't wait to blog the following day. Blogging puts learning in the students hands and it really allows you to see if they understand a concept without your normal test or quiz. Starting tomorrow I am going to make time in my classroom for that student to be able to blog because I see how beneficial this could be to my students. I won't be using the "we ran out of time" excuse any longer.
Will you blog?
References:
Saturday, September 7, 2013
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