Case+36+-+Mrs.+D's+Power+Point

Mrs. D is a new teacher in the Weehawken School District but has one other year of teaching experience in a charter school in Jersey City. She is a 7th grade math teacher with limited experience with incorporating technology into the curriculum. She has a classroom with a Smart Board and is required to create lessons utilizing it on a daily basis. Most of the veteran math teachers in her building do not have a Smart Board and do not use technology on a daily basis.

At a recent math workshop she attended at Keane University, Mrs. D overheard other teachers talking about using the Internet to find Power Point games to be used in their classrooms. Later that evening she went home and searched on line for these games. In her search she found many sites with an array of games, mostly in a Jeopardy type format. Although they were math specific, she did not feel she could use the games in her classroom with out editing them. She opened the Power Point document, saved it and began editing the categories to align with her curriculum. The next day she presented the review game to her students and posted it on her website. She was concerned that she had “stole” someone’s original work so she cited the url from which she found the original game when she posted the game on her website. Mrs. D was still concerned and thought she may have needed permission from the creator to use the document.

// Based on the Fair Use and Copyright Laws, Mrs. D is not in violation for the use of the Power Point document. The purpose of using this Power Point document was strictly educational. Mrs. D took the original document and modified the content but the framework of the document remained in tact. After making the modifications she used the document in her own classroom. The amount used from the original document was far less than 50%. The layout of the document remained in tact as well as the created links to the slides, and the font and background color but all of the questions were modified. Mrs. D did not use this document to publish and make a profit. The original document was intended to be used in a classroom setting and Mrs. D maintained its original audience with the modifications she made. //

//Mrs. D noticed that she altered someone else's Jeopardy game and covered herself by citing the the url from which she found the game. She is only using it in her classroom for educational purposes only and is not attaching the template to any other colleagues. Games such as Jeopardy is used as an interactive review game and athlough she used the template, the questions and answers were completely made up for her class.//