Blog Post #2

     Personally, throughout my education growing up, Microsoft Word was probably the most used software and form of educational technology used in the classroom. As a student, I wrote and revised countless essays throughout my middle and high school years using the different editing, spacing and citations tools available in the software. As students we also used word for certain projects that required a physical handout to be made, creating a newspaper article, or forming graphic organizers to better understand a concept. Microsoft Word is also very used on the teachers end of things. This software allows for quizzes, worksheets, rubrics and many other documents to easily be made. Word also allowed for creative layouts, themes, and graphics to be used that can better engage students. Teachers can also use word as a great source of communication, there are many features that allow teachers to create flyers, sign up sheets, in case students or parents don't have or use technology including email, social media,etc.
     Throughout my educational experience, teachers were very diligent in making sure we new the guidelines of copyright and how to properly cite information. In many different classes I have had presentations on how to correctly cite and format papers with MLA, or an annotated bibliography that gives credit to the sources and ideas quoted. Especially in English, history and research classes, teachers made having an annotated bibliography that correctly cited sources a reasonable portion of the papers grade. As a student I found the presentations on how to set up correct citations to be very helpful. The clear cut instructions make students understand how important it is to give the owner correct credit, as a teacher I would want to implement these presentation and set aside time in my lessons early in the year to have them so copyright is never an issue throughout the course.
     In Chapter 11, the 3 implementation issues  addressed with educational technology were legal, social, and ethical issues. Legal issues mostly deal with student privacy and how easy it is for students to release information that should be held confidential in today's digital world. To solve this I believe teachers should look into every website and software they plan to use and navigate it, making sure there is no personal information students would have to enter. Also by closely monitoring students activity through a filtering software such as NetFilter, students are stopped before having an option to enter personal information to ensure that student's information remains confidential while still being able to use educational technology. The biggest social issue dealing with educational technology is referred to in the text as the "digital divide", where students who live in more affluent homes are more likely to have access to technology, giving them a technological advantage over students who don't have these computer resources at home. A good solution to this issue is teachers really knowing and understanding their students situation at home. By knowing where they are at technologically, teachers are able to give extra attention to students who are struggling or even offer ways for students to practice with educational technology outside of school if they cant get these resources at home. Lastly, ethical issues or issues concerning societal values must be addressed in today's classroom. These issues include being a respectful digital citizen while having your own voice, but even more importantly, using the internet correctly to produce your own unique work. Plagiarism is a big issue in today's classroom because students have many resources that they can easily copy and paste and put their name on it. Obviously this goes against the values of society and what makes a good citizen, softwares such as TurnItIn are good ways to check for plagiarism and make students produce their own work, promoting academic honesty in the technological classroom where it is easier to copy someone else's work from online then to do the right thing.