Fair Use and the TEACH Act Use

The Assignment:

As discussed throughout this quest, Fair Use and the TEACH act allow educators to use copyrighted material for educational purposes. Referring to the checklist and resources provided, determine how this information may be applied in an online classroom. In your respective blog, discuss the following:

• How does an understanding of Fair Use affect one’s role as an online instructor?
• How do Fair Use and the TEACH Act correlate to the delivery of reliable content?

1.  Fair Use provides guidelines for teachers concerning how much of a resource they can actually use or copy when instructing students.  For the most part, using a resource that relates to the content is acceptable, but teachers can only use so much of the resource.  In other words, teachers cannot copy an entire book or work of knowledge for instructional purposes, but they can copy just a piece if it pertains to the subject.

2.  As a teacher, both Fair Use and TEACH Act seem to be more accommodating in the face-to-face setting, but online or distance learning it is somewhat evolving.  This is probably because laws and government do not necessarily keep up with technology.  From what I can tell, Fair Use and TEACH Act must be used in asynchronous settings, which means that it must be a "live" session online for the resource to be used.  Like the face-to-face setting, you can still only use a partial piece of it.  To avoid some of these "legal issues," it is probably best for teachers to make their own content.  This means, you create activities and information for your students.  Fair Use and TEACH Act also emphasize the importance of planning.  As an instructor, you need to plan every component of your curriculum.