Education and Copyright Law

The use of copyrighted works for educational purposes is a practice that has admittedly (albeit ignorantly) become routine in my first year teaching. Last Thursday, our discussion in Advanced Computers class highlighted many issues I'd never considered to date regarding exploitling protected works, simply because as a new teacher, a suggestion passed along by many of my colleagues has simply been to avoid "reinventing the wheel" in developing my cirriculum. My colleagues have advised that I leverage off of various textbooks, workbooks, printouts from websites, etc., to help me shape my lessons to include "tried and true" approaches that appeal to students. (And to date, particularly during my first two months teaching, I relied on much of that content - particularly in the form of handouts copied from different publishers - with the intention of using it next year.)

Like many teachers, the sole purpose of incorporating others' images, tips, tools, etc., into my lessons has merely been to benefit my students. Visiting other teachers' websites to find the "best" approach to articulate or depict a math concept is something I actually believed was expected of me (and additionally, requires a considerable amount of time). (As an example, I stumbled upon a "Mr. Gallon" image online that I relied on in my lessons teaching the customary system for measuring capacity. My students' response to that image (the format, colors used, etc.) was so positive the idea of creating my own "Mr. Gallon" seems to be taking a step backward in helping my kids.) Furthermore, due to a lack of resources at school, my students do not have a textbook or workbook they may rely on to supplement my lessons, and as a result, unless I create every classwork or homework assignment from scratch, the students would not receive adequate practice for the material covered.

I honestly am very indecisive as to my feelings on the copyright laws. I obviously understand the need for such rules, and the caveats is ulitizing such information in teaching, but the rules seem very limiting if I'm unable to rely on the material I've assembled this year in the years to come. Having said that, it seems that I will have much to change for next year!