Tons of Free Professional (Trade) Publications: Print or E-mail -- Your Choice
Many teachers can use free technical publications, even if they receive only one copy.
Sometimes a printed copy is better, other times an electronic copy is more useful. What if you could receive free copies in one format, or the other, or both?
Many trade publications are available to teachers, free for the asking…requiring only a few minutes work in filling out the online forms.
What kind of Publications are Available?
Here is a list (and links) to a summary of the types of publications that teachers may find useful…
http://techrepublic.tradepub.com/
Uses for Printed Copies of Trade Journals
Uses for printed copies of trade journals are limited only by your imagination. Some options include:
- Learning Centers
- Classroom Library
- Classroom Career Center
- Classroom "Science and Technology" Resource Library
- Rip issues apart for reports and presentations
- File and catalog clipping file resource database
- Etc.
Uses for Electronic Copies of Trade Journals
Uses for electronic content are limited only by "Fair Use" copyright considerations. (Note: Students have more leeway in the use of copyrighted material for their assignments than teachers have in classroom instruction.)
When in doubt, obtain permission to use the material. Use only a small portion of the material, and make sure that instruction "surrounds" the use of the material. One use that is generally safe is satire.
Another strategy is to site all sources, something that you should model for your students, anyway.
And remember the "tongue in cheek" difference between research and plagiarism, i.e., "If you copy from one source it is plagiarism, but if you copy from three sources it is research."
You are generally safe if you compare quotes from three "authors/ experts" and ask students any of the higher order questions concerning the different viewpoints, vantage points, talking points and "hidden agendas" of each author.
For a discussion of higher-order thinking skills, see our Classroom Toolkit Higher-Order Thinking page…
Free Resources
Even if you only develop a library of the printed publications and allow students to read them during "spare or sponge activity" moments, you don't know when reading about a career, technology of industry will influence a student to pursue a new course of study and a better life.
Widening the horizons of students pays off in amazing ways, ways that we may not discover until years later…or ways that we may never discover.
Part of the joy of teaching is realizing that our service to students reaches beyond our need to know about or take credit for the benefits that our students receive.
