Meghan's Blog

Before the winter break my digital literacy learned about copyright laws. We mostly learned about Creative Commons and the licenses that they offer. I made an Adobe Voice explaining the how to use and get a Creative Commons license. Then when we came back from the break my teacher told us about a real life example where copyright laws were broken.

Richard Byrne 

Richard Byrne wrote an posted an article he wrote on his blog on January 2 about how to make a jeopardy game using Google Spreadsheets. Byrne is a full-time blogger and runs a very popular blog, Free Technology for Teachers. Byrne puts a lot of hard work into his blog posts.

 Beth Stills

Beth Still wrote about the incident where the blog, Educational Technology and Mobile Learning, stole Richard Byrne’s blog post. The blog Educational Technology and Mobile Learning has the disclaimer saying that, “Some of the materials that are published in this blog are not our own property like for example some guides, posters and infographics. Again, all of these resources are properly referenced so that our readers can trace back their original creators. If you are the owner of a resource featured in this blog and you decide, for a reason or another, that you do not want it to be featured here anymore or  you want us to change the link to the credited source or even take it down completely from the site, please report it to us and your request will be met in less than 24 hours”.This is not the case because the site does not give credit, nor will it take down an article they stole if the author requests it.

@medkh9

The twitter user, @medkh9 , knows that some bloggers don’t want him to take their work, but he does it anyway. This is not right and I personally he should be punished.

Opinion 

First of all, I think it is never okay to steal someone else’s work without their permission. That person put their time, and hard work into whatever they created and it is not fair to them to take that without their permission. I also really liked Beth Still’s article on her opinion of the disagreement because I thought her point of view was very interesting and informative. Learning about real-life examples of people being hurt by people not following copyright laws really made me understand why these laws and licenses are so important.

This week my class and I participated in the Hour of Code. I participated in it last year and I was really looking forward to coding again. My teacher made a really helpful digital flyer that had many great links to coding websites.

The Different Coding Tutorials. 

For the class assignment, we had to complete at least four coding tutorials. The first tutorial I did I think was the easiest. I first did Coding Monkey, where you had to guide the monkey to the bananas using code. The site gave you mostly all of the step so all you had to do was type in a small command. It was a great site for beginner coders, but I wanted more of a challenge. Next, I made a Scratch greeting card using drag and drop. I was already familiar with the drag and drop technique, so I didn’t feel as if it was that hard, but I was able to help my classmates. Scratch lets you be creative so it made coding fun for those who maybe don’t like to code. The third tutorial I did was by far the hardest. I did a tutorial by Khan Academy, where you had to make a sun grow bigger using code. Khan Academy uses real code and doesn’t give very many hints. I used Khan Academy last year and really liked it. The last tutorial I did was LightBot, where you used simple commands to guide the robot to the blue squares so he could light them up. LightBot was another program that was really simple, and was a more beginner coding website.

Coding on Different Devices. 

This week I only coded on a desktop computer, but some of my classmates used a Chromebook, or their IPad. I like using desktop computers because I am most familiar with them I think they are easier to use than the other choices. Some of the program’s don’t work on the IPad and I think using a mouse pad makes using a Chromebook more difficult.

Coding After the Hour of Code. 

After doing my second year of Hour of Code, I am really interested in learning more about coding. I really like to code and I want to continue coding even after the Hour of Code ends. I wish that some of my other teachers had done the Hour of Code so more students can learn how to code.

Advice for Next Year’s Hour of Code Students.

For the students who will be completing the Hour of Code next year, I think they should not be frustrated if they don’t get it at first because at first it is difficult, but when you get it it becomes really run. I would definitely recommend using Khan Academy to learn how to code because they have great videos and step by step instructions on how to code, then they have challenges that you can do. If you are a beginner coder I would recommend Coding Monkey because it is a really simple way to ease your way into the coding world.

I loved doing this Hour of Code week and can’t wait to do it again next year. I hope that I will have the chance to continue coding even though it won’t be the Hour of Code for another 364 days!