When I was in elementary school (1998-2002), teachers used Teacher’s Guide to write lesson plans and teach subjects. Now, as a 1st grade teacher, I notice that I seldom look through Teacher’s Guide, instead, I look for teaching materials on the Internet, such as TpT, Pinterest, YouTube, etc. We have all become digital citizens nowadays. 

When I find a set of English learning center materials, I download them and use PDF editor to translate into Chinese for use. When I find a good Chinese picture book, I also download, print, and give it to students. Neither attribution nor copyright info is included in these materials, because I assume first graders are too young to understand copyright. I don’t see any problem with it until I learned legality of media use in this unit. 

In Copyright and fair use guidelines for teachers, it mentions “copies must contain copyright information. Copies maybe made only from legally acquired originals” (Technology & Learning. (n.d.), 1976). Not only adult should know copyright, our students today also need to learn about copyright, attribution, public domain, licensing, fair use, etc. “We should choose to teach copyright not because it is easy, but because it is hard, because the goal of understanding copyright will serve to measure the best of student energies, skills, and citizenship” (Tara W., 2017). 

If all of us can respect the achievements of others, carefully indicate the sources when citing, ask the creator before using his/her content, and keep learning about copyright, I believe this will definitely inspire creators. COPYRIGHT MATTERS. 

Check out my video talks about the importance of copyright.