Episode 57: Teaching Kids about Copyright and Plagiarism

Are you teaching your kids about copyright and plagiarism? Too many students in my online classes are routinely plagiarising and breaking copyright. I don't think many realize that what they are doing is wrong.

Copyright
Be sure to explain to your children that unless the project they are doing falls into the "fair use" category, they should never assume they can use any photographs, clipart, music etc they find online.

To find material that they can legally use, the easiest thing is to do a Creative Commons Search and specify how they will use the resource.

Plagiarism

Make sure your children understand that at university there will be automatic plagiarism checkers that will assess their assignments. But even without that, it is very easy for someone grading to notice that the language isn't what a school student would typically use. And a quick "cut and paste" can confirm it.

Teach your children how to take notes from a source. They need to learn to read a passage and then close the book or move to a new tab on their computer. They should be able to think about what they have read, explain it aloud, and then put down the main idea in writing. Jennifer Gonzalez from Cult of Pedagogy has an excellent podcast episode / blog post that includes a lesson plan to help you teach this.

Citations

Be sure to teach your children how to cite their sources. Easybib is a good tool for that. If they use Google Docs they can do the citations right in their document with the built-in tool for that.

Our sponsor, FundaFunda Academy's has an online Computer Applications class for 7th - 12th graders. The class teaches about copyright, plagiarism, how to do citations, how to use many digital tools and much more. Take it in 7th or 8th grade to prepare for high school or as an elective credit in high school.

Be sure to join our Facebook group where we carry on the discussion about Homeschooling with Technology.

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Contact Meryl via email on meryl@mediaangels.com or connect with her on Pinterest, Instagram, and Facebook