Copyright Law and Me

This last week in class we learned about copyright laws, and guess what: my opinion didn't change much. I feel how I have always felt about them. They are the fabrication of evil and conspiring men to keep the money in the hands of the rich and to suck the joy out of the lives of the poor. It really boils down to simple economics. If you are making money off of something that I created, the chances are that I am not. Boohoo for me. Sorry to musicians and moviemakers and other creative people. I really feel like those who want to make more money need to lower prices and create a better product. I'm personally tired of paying too much money for an album with one good song or a movie that I only sort of like. Yeah, yeah, I know. ITunes and the like take care of things like that. Well, I'm not even going to pay a dollar (or whatever it is now) to you as a mediocre (or even good to great) artist to buy the "license to listen to" your song when you're going to charge me $60 for a concert that you don't even sound as good when I go to. In addition to that, I don't want Apple making more money when they don't lower the ludicrous prices of their iPods and accessories, but that's a rant for another day. I'm not condoning getting illegal movies or music. I don't do it, and I don't think it's even okay, but here's the bottom line. Copyright laws serve a very small group of people, and that's the copyright owner, their lawyers that write the copyright laws, and the companies they work for. I think the only way to change it to make it completely equitable is to do away with copyrights altogether, but you and I know that the suits will never let that happen. In the meantime, stick it to the man in the only way possible, in the wallet.

Saving Time and Effort

There are many helpful resources on the Web that can help you (and me) in your progression towards being computer savvy and learned, even for teachers. For example, www.w3schools.com can help you learn web development languages quickly and accessibly. As a teacher or anyone else trying to become more technologically advanced, learning one or several of the languages on the site can make the information you are trying to convey or learn more convenient and eco-friendly for those you teach or associate with. Diigo.com is a great site that can help you stay organized and keep track of interesting things that you find online. It has a very handy highlighting system for important information and online sticky notes. Finally, www.zotero.org is a great resource for any learner, especially those doing research. It allows you to take the research material you are gathering, sort it, and then cite it without having to do all the tedious work of figuring out how to properly cite it in your paper or article. It also has an iTunes style way to store your research. It seems like a great tool to use. There are probably thousands of other sites to further the learning of anyone and everyone, but for now, these are enough to keep me busy!

First Post and Goals

Hello, blog followers! I think you'll find this blog as thrilling as you imagine it to be! This blog is for IP&T 286 at BYU, which is a technology class for future physical educators. I personally hope that I can get some great ideas on how to use technology in the PE forum, as well as instruction in the actual programs that we use. I also hope to be proficient enough in those programs that I will remember how to use them once I graduate and actually have a job out in the field. I think it will be okay because I feel reasonably confident in my ability to use most simple computer technology. Most of that sentiment is a result of growing up in the computer age and being a former broadcasting student. We'll see how it goes!