Blog #2

I have been using Microsoft Word for a very long time in terms of my education.  It has been a huge part of my academic life, especially in college, because it is where I write all of my theatre studies papers and write all of my little assignments for my classes.  Through Microsoft Word, I have developed my skills in formatting different types of papers (ex. spacing, headers and footers, etc.).  I have also exercised my knowledge of different types of academic paper format, mainly utilizing MLA format for my theatre studies work.  I have seen my teachers use Microsoft Word a handful of times, mostly in college in the form of the class syllabus.  Many of my teachers have also used Word as a way to display the specific format they want for a particular assignment, which becomes a great way for students to be guided through an assignment like a checkpoint system.

Being a theatre major, I have to read quite a lot of plays for my abundant amount of theatre studies classes that I am enrolled in.  Due to this, it is always important that we be cautious when finding plays, sharing them with others, etc.  My professors highly suggest to my classmates and I that we purchase hard copies of the plays because that is a fair use of the material and doesn't infringe on copyright laws.  It is always much safer to do so because it respects the publisher and the author of the play.  Addressing this in the classroom would be something I highly suggest and monitor.  My goal in the classroom would always be to provide my students with the actual, tangible text instead of an online version found by digging through the Internet.  I would want to stress the importance of this to my students through a set of rules.  I also think it is very important when students know how to correctly cite their work for the sake of copyright laws so they don't take the words of an author and claim them as their own.  It is so crucial that students know how to cite correctly because academic papers beyond high school are very adamant about it.

In terms of the "digital divide" I would never want any of my students to feel like they are lacking a skill that their peers might have due to a lack of exposure to technology.  To address this, I would make it a point to appeal to the class as a whole when utilizing a different form of technology and going through the steps on how to use it despite the previous knowledge some students might have.  Academic honesty is something that is also very important to me.  I would implement a rule in my classroom about academic honesty and stress the importance of following it and what the consequences are.  I would also implement an honor code in my classroom that the students would need to follow, which is something that was done in my high school and was really effective.  Combatting cyberbullying is something I would also want to do in my classroom.  A solution I feel that would be effective is a presentation on the subject and then following up with a small little project with the whole.  Possibly creating a poster with statements regarding why cyberbullying is wrong or papers written by each individual student and their opinions on why cyberbullying is wrong/research on the topic.  This makes it academic, interactive, and utilizes their knowledge.