This week we dove deeper into plagiarism and copyright infringement in IT class. Copyright infringement is probably the largest crime in public schools and at daycare centers. I think back to my daycare program based in a church and recall getting worksheets every day. Since the books were not purchased, the center should have received permission to make copies or purchased a licenses for the copies of the worksheets. My question is, Is it illegal or just ethically wrong for a daycare center without the funds to purchase a license to make copies to teach the young children? This is a very tough dilemma. It is similar to seeing a dog suffering at the hand of it’s owner. Should you steal the dog and rescue him even though it is stealing? After digging deeper into this dilemma, I found an interesting concept called “fair use”. I found the following definition of fair use on Legalzoom (https://info.legalzoom.com/profit-vs-nonprofit-copyright-laws-fair-use-issues-20396.html); The “fair use” exception to copyright protection allows you to use a limited portion of a work copyrighted by someone else, as long as your use is for certain permitted purposes such as education, commentary, criticism, teaching, news reporting, scholarship, research or parody. I think in this case of having a preschool class size of 4-6 children, would that be considered limited? and it is education. As with any tax or other law, copyright infringement has it’s legal loophole called fair use. In this case, it also helps with the ethical question.

This is an example post, originally published as part of Blogging University. Enroll in one of our ten programs, and start your blog right.

You’re going to publish a post today. Don’t worry about how your blog looks. Don’t worry if you haven’t given it a name yet, or you’re feeling overwhelmed. Just click the “New Post” button, and tell us why you’re here.

Why do this?

• Because it gives new readers context. What are you about? Why should they read your blog?
• Because it will help you focus you own ideas about your blog and what you’d like to do with it.

The post can be short or long, a personal intro to your life or a bloggy mission statement, a manifesto for the future or a simple outline of your the types of things you hope to publish.

To help you get started, here are a few questions:

• Why are you blogging publicly, rather than keeping a personal journal?
• What topics do you think you’ll write about?
• Who would you love to connect with via your blog?
• If you blog successfully throughout the next year, what would you hope to have accomplished?

You’re not locked into any of this; one of the wonderful things about blogs is how they constantly evolve as we learn, grow, and interact with one another — but it’s good to know where and why you started, and articulating your goals may just give you a few other post ideas.

Can’t think how to get started? Just write the first thing that pops into your head. Anne Lamott, author of a book on writing we love, says that you need to give yourself permission to write a “crappy first draft”. Anne makes a great point — just start writing, and worry about editing it later.

When you’re ready to publish, give your post three to five tags that describe your blog’s focus — writing, photography, fiction, parenting, food, cars, movies, sports, whatever. These tags will help others who care about your topics find you in the Reader. Make sure one of the tags is “zerotohero,” so other new bloggers can find you, too.