The use of technology in the classroom has the power to greatly enhance engagement and education as a whole. However, with this power comes the responsibility for students to learn how to use resources effectively and safely. In the video "Importance of Teaching Digital Citizenship" (2014), teaching digital citizenship is compared to teaching 16 year-olds to drive. You wouldn't give a 16 year-old a license without learning the rules of the road, so why would you give a student Internet access without learning the rules of the web? With digital citizenship comes a plethora of moral and legal issues, which will be described below.
Moral issues
I think the most prevalent moral issue associated with technology use is teaching students about cyber bullying. Many students think of their online worlds and their real worlds as entirely different entities. They do not think about how their actions online could impact their relationships in person. Students need to be taught what cyber bullying is, because many of them might do it without even realizing so. For example, leaving a sarcastic comment on a friend's picture might not seem like bullying, but it has the potential to hurt the friend's feelings, which is considered bullying. Students need to know to recognize and stop cyber bullying.
Another moral issue in today's schools is confidentiality. Students need to see how anything that is posted online can be viewed by anyone around the world, and that it never disappears. For example, teachers have to think about cyber predators before posting any pictures of their class (Burt, 2010). Many teachers and schools do like to use images because they promote a sense of reflection and pride when the world sees your learning in action (Burt, 2010). However, teachers should not include students' last names on any pictures or videos posted online.
Lastly, schools need to consider what should be kept public vs. private. There are arguments to be made for both sides, such as that posting things like blogs or presentations publicly could boost global media education, while keeping things private could limit the global learning aspect and stifle the project's momentum (Burt, 2010). In my opinion, teachers should be encouraging of students to share their work in wikis, blogs, or presentations publicly. However, teachers must also teach students what this means and teach them how to be safe when doing so. For example, students need to be able to recognize when a cyber predator has commented on their blog and know how to block and report the person.
Legal issues
One of the most wide-spread legal issues in technology today is plagiarism. Plagiarism occurs when a student copies someone else's language, ideas, or material without giving credit to them (The Council of Writing Program Administrators, 2003). It can happen for a variety of reasons, such as that students as afraid of failing, have poor time-management skills, or the school does not enforce penalties (The Council of Writing Program Administrators, 2003). To avoid plagiarism, students need to be taught how to cite sources as well as the importance of doing so. The availability of resources on the Internet makes plagiarism much too easy for students to do, and they need to understand the legal protocol behind it.
Legal issues can get messy when schools have no policies developed. If anything negative happens while a student is using the Internet and they have not signed an acceptable use policy, the school could get in huge trouble. For this reason, schools and administrators need to ensure they have developed acceptable use policies, social media policies, and even policies about bring your own device (Module four, n.d.).
The main idea is that students want to be safe on the internet, but it is the teachers' and parents' jobs to teach students how to do so.
References
Burt, R. (2010, Nov. 30). We should
talk: What are you doing to ensure student safety online? Edublogs.
Retrieved from http://edublogs.org/2010/11/30/we-should-talk-what-are-you-doing-to-ensure-student-safety-online/
Common Sense Media (2014). Importance of teaching digital citizenship. Retrieved from https://www.commonsensemedia.org/videos/the-importance-of-teaching-digital-citizenship
Module four: Ethical, legal, and moral practices in technology (n.d.). Retrieved from bb.snhu.edu
The council of Writing Program
Administrators (2003, Jan.) Defining and
avoiding plagiarism: The WPA statement on best practices. Retrieved from http://wpacouncil.org/node/9
Nice blog, Michelle. I particularly like that you talk about public vs private. Although I agree that there are circumstances where students' privacy needs to be protected, I also agree with the quote from the Edutopia article that global learning is prevented. I understand why the school where I work is concerned with the students' privacy, but I also think that positive global exposure helps to enhance a student's digital footprint and can lessen the severity of silly stuff they may post on their own time. I have seen some fantastic programs that promote students skills and writing ability for future employers and college admissions to see. One local program, in Burlington, MA, publishes student-run help-desk members' blog posts and Google Hangouts interviews with ed tech gurus from around the country. I think that this kind of exposure gives these students experience for their future and a great addition to their resumes.
ReplyDeleteHere's the link to BHS Google Hangouts shows: http://bhshelpdesk.com/category/help-desk-media/helpdesklive/