Digital Citizenship: Respect, Educate, Protect

While I was learning about being safe, lawful, and educated in the realm of digital citizenship for myself and my future classroom, I felt like I needed one of those 'I am a U.S. citizen now!' stickers, but instead it says: 'I am a digital citizen now!' It can be hard work in order to get to the point of knowing what's best for citations, searching, sources, and many other details and so when the time comes when someone feels confident to be rightfully online then a sticker is well deserved. Maybe I'll have to give my students badges or stickers after the introduction unit of digital citizenship. Just think, their first citizenship ever possibly!

Of course, there's always room for improvement. I'm still working on becoming a better U.S. citizen so I'll probably be working on my digital citizenship indefinitely.

The benefit of learning about learning how to be properly protected, educated, and respectful of the internet in the start of a school year is that students can begin positive habits right away while practicing technology skills. Understanding the consequences of being online is not the only part of being a digital citizen in my opinion because it's only fair to my students if they know how to be efficient technology users. Integrating useful technology in my classroom is only helpful for them if they aren't getting frustrated all the time. Maybe a little lesson of patience won't hurt though, wink wink.

I had first heard of the Ed Sheeran copyright infringement over the radio one day while I was driving. It had piqued my interest because I tend to like his songs a lot and wanted to know whether his character matched the quality of his music. Then, an assignment brought me to it again where I had to research copyright infringement even further. The singer, musician, and specifically song writer Ed Sheeran is being sued for "verbatim, note-for-note copying of important and original elements of the song" When I Found You, played by an Australian artist Jasmine Rae and written by Rae herself, Beau Golden, and Sean Carey. It also has to be obvious to the ordinary observer according to Rae's lawyer Richard Busch. So, the question is: does When I Found You sound like Sheeran's The Rest of Our Life sung by Tim McGraw and Faith Hill? Keep in mind that he has been sued previously for his song Photograph.

When I listened to these songs one right after another I did not hear a close enough similarity to feel like it was copying. I wonder if sub-consciously anyone has committed copyright infringement since our brain likes music and remembers underlying tones. But, after listening to them at the same time, I saw that the speed up's and slow down's were almost identical. That's what got me. I'm not a musical expert so I don't know if there is a universal up and down to songs, but it seemed uncanny to me how exact the tempo changed. Ed Sheeran doesn't look good in this case. That's my opinion.

Source comes from YouTube.

Source comes from YouTube.