I knew that copyright laws were important, but I had no idea how serious they were. I have always been careful with anything I use whether it be in the classroom or my own school work. I make sure that I am giving credit to the proper person. The thing that blew me away the most is when they were talking about bulletin boards in the classroom and how teachers should not recreate cartoon characters. I have seen many teachers do that before. It was shocking to me that it is not allowed or accepted. If you want that certain character up in your classroom then you have to find one that you are able to purchase so you are abiding by the copyright regulations. This makes me rethink a lot of things.
As educators we need to know what the proper guidelines are so that we can follow them. We need to show our students that copyright laws are serious and something that should not be taken lightly. I do not think that people realize how serious of an issue it really is. When we are copying something we are taking credit for someone’s idea or creation. In school we are teaching students that plagiarism is wrong. This is a form of plagiarism. We need to instill in them that you can receive serious consequences for breaking the copyright laws. I think that it is something that people are not aware of and they have not been properly instructed on. Now that I have read over the different articles in this module I am definitely going to share my knowledge with others.
chelsielynngreenn 
Great article! I was also not aware of how closely we must look at copyright laws. I have seen many teachers in schools use characters in their boards. However, now that I am aware of how serious it can be I will make sure to either purchase them or leave characters off. As educators we are teaching children how bad it is to take someone else’s work. We must also abide by what we are teaching our students as well. Copyright has become a tough battle for educators, but it is a necessary task we need to avoid.
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Chelsie, like you I was blown away by the bulletin board information. We as teachers think we’re being creative but we really are breaking the copyrighted work of other individuals. Wow! I was truly blown away by that fact. How can we teach students how to respect the laws if we ourselves are breaking them. It is a sobering fact that I know that I will abide by in the future as well as share it with other educators. Great blog this week. You included very important information for us all.
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