An Evaluation of Learning Material in MERLOT

Introduction to Copyright for Educators

This learning module was designed to provide a basic understanding of copyright law to college students majoring in education. The module presents information and then uses a series of scenario based assessment activities to encourage critical thinking and understanding.

Quality of Content:

1. The software presents valid concepts, models, and skills.  It provides a basic explanation of copyright law. It presents information and then uses scenario activities to check for understanding.
2. The software presents educationally significant concepts. Topics covered include:  copyright basics, movies,and music, fair use policy, software types, software licenses, internet and e-mail.

Potential Effectiveness as a Teaching-Learning Tool:
The materials in Introduction to Copyright for Educators could be used in the following stages of the learning process:

1. Explanation- The module introduction,identifies reasons copyright law is a concern in the academic community. 
2. Demonstration -The problem is explored in six specific different areas of copyright law.

The target learner is a college student planning on majoring in elementary or secondary education.After successfully learning with the materials on Introduction to Copyright for Educators, the student should be able to promote and model digital citizenship and responsibility.The software could readily be integrated into current curriculum.  Because of the modular design, students could work through it at their own pace.


Ease of Use
The software is very well organized and presented in a logical fashion.Colors, fonts, and layout leave a general impression of consistency.  The user easily moves from one part of the module to another without getting trapped or lost.  The user is given scenario's to read, listen to, and respond to. If they respond incorrectly, an explanation is given of what the correct answer should be. Even though this site is meant to be used by college students studying to be educators. it is so relevant to my middle school curriculum that I plan to incorporate use of it next marking period.  What a find!