When using technology as a part of a lesson, a teacher
must strive to use ethical practices in order to ensure that all students are
being treated fairly and are safe. The Ashford University Program Learning
Outcome 5 is to “exemplify ethical practices of technology usage.” It is vital that all students in the Masters
in Teaching and Learning with Technology program (MATLT) achieve this objective
in order to ensure that their technology use is appropriate, fair and
safe. As Lin (2007) outlined, there are
methods that all teachers should employ to ensure that they are developing
technology use strategies that are ethical. Not only does this apply to how an
educator uses the technology in regards to the students and student expressions
but also to copyright laws dealing with the usage of sources (U.S. Copyright
Office, 2012). This paper will provide a
revision of a previous assignment that incorporates the use of Learning Objective
5 to show ethical practices in technology use.
Original
Assignment
A
classroom blog was created and published at
http://loripeterssneed.edublogs.org/ using edublog.org. The topic of the blog is world history, and
the audience is sophomore history students and their parents. The purpose of the blog is to create interaction
between the students and teacher by providing students with a reminder about
their upcoming assignments and to keep parents up to date on the assignments
and tests for the month. Students and
parents will also be able to use the blog to make comments or post questions
for the teacher. The goal of this blog is to provide a simple but full
explanation of what the students are being expected to accomplish is a simple
and easy to read fashion. The blog highlights an article each day for the
parents as well as students with an explanation of assignments. Students can also find links to useful
websites about world history. The site has the appropriate information while
being simple and easy to follow.
It was important that the blog be simple in format and
provides clear and concise writing.
Students should be able to find a clear explanation of their upcoming
assignments, and parents should have no trouble finding a clear and concise
list of upcoming tests and projects.
Information is limited to course specific information to keep students
on task (Newby, Stepich, Lehman, Russell, & Ottenbreit-Leftwich,
2011). The site is easily accessible for
any modern computer user because articles and links are easy to locate or
navigate to. The site does not contain
any graphics other than the background primarily because I had difficulty
loading them onto the site. The addition of graphics to the
site could provide the educator to address the learning needs of all students
and provide for a greater lever of understanding of topics.
I found this process fun at first, but it soon became
frustrating. I spent a number of hours trying
to add a graphic to the page, but instead of the graphic showing up, the html
code kept appearing. Even when reading
the help available through the site, I was not able to find out what I was
doing wrong. The initial information
such as posting the articles for the parents and students was exciting. I felt as if I was creating something that I
would actually use in my own classroom.
However, when I tried to add more content to the site in the form of
graphics and wikis, I started to feel overwhelmed.
Revised
Assignment
This assignment involved the creation of a classroom blog
that parents and students could access at any time. The blog would contain information about
class assignments and would provide links to outside web sources. In addition, the intent was to include a link
to a classroom wiki where students could participate in class discussions
together outside of the classroom. I
found that using edublogs was difficult, and I have since practiced creating
blogs on this website as well as on blogspot.
Blogs and wikis have tremendous potential to increase learning as long
as they are used appropriately (Heilferty, 2011; Times Higher Education, 2011). This lesson was missing one major element, an
explanation of ethical guidelines and principles and an expression of intention
to create an ethical and fair environment for the students.
As
Heilferty (2011) reports, people often fail to realize that the information
they post to online forums such as blogs is going to be read by others,
sometimes by many others. In addition,
people often feel the anonymity provided by the online forum allows them to be
freer with their words than they would be if they were speaking to someone in
person. Therefore, the students need to
be educated about the problems that can occur from using this technology and
careful attention needs to be made to the content the students are
posting. In addition, Times Higher
Education (2011) reports that even private, classroom blogs and wikis can be
hacked, so students need to be aware that any information they post to these
social networking sites is not too personal or embarrassing.
This
assignment prepared for EDU649 should include the following information that
will be printed in the classroom syllabus, given to students and parents before
the assignment begins, and reprinted on the classroom blog and wiki sites:
Classroom
lectures, discussions and all participation on websites are considered private
and are not to be shared with any person outside of the class without the
teacher’s express permission. As members
of this class, we have an ethical obligation to preserve the confidence of our
fellow classmates who might say or write something of a personal nature during
class time or on the internet forums. Students should have the expectation that
any words spoken or written in the course of completing work for this class
will be read or heard only by those in the class. In addition, students should
not give access to classroom internet forums to any person outside of the
class. This protects the students who
could be harmed if someone else reads their comments. The school has an obligation to protect
students from outside sources, and permitting unauthorized personnel to access
the site is forbidden because the school is open to inappropriate comments and
behaviors on the part of individuals who are not permitted to have access to
the site. Students that do not adhere to
the code of conduct will be subject to discipline as outlined in the school
handbook.
Written
communication through the online blog and wiki will be vital components of the
coursework. Students are expected to
behave in a respectful and considerate manner when posting to these online
resources. Students are expected to be
encouraging and helpful to other students, especially those who ask for
assistance or seem to be struggling.
Students will be made aware that written communication can be taken
differently than verbal communication.
Students need to use words carefully and reread all comments to
interpret whether they would be considered insulting, disrespectful,
discriminating or rude by another student.
If the answer to any of these questions is yes, the student needs to
rethink the phrasing of the comment and rethink the comment all together if
necessary. Shouting or the use of all
capital letters when communicating in the online forums is forbidden. Students need to be patient with fellow
students and the instructor, sometimes replies take time. Mocking, shouting, cursing, and humiliating
words and behaviors will not be tolerated in any form on the online forums or
in the classroom. In order for all
students to get the most out of this educational experience, every student
needs to conduct themselves with mature and respectable behavior, and any
violations of the above policies will be dealt with by the teacher as well as
the principal and the student’s parents if the situation calls for it.
Challenges
& Conclusion
This assignment was the most challenging one so far
because it was difficult to identify an appropriate assignment to revise
because it was difficult to see how ethics needed to be built into the lesson
itself. After much thought, I realized
that any online work required an ethics and behavior code that should be
communicated before the start of the class.
All students need to have a thorough understanding of what the school
and teacher’s expectations are for their behavior in the class but especially
in the online forums. Online forums give
the writers a sense of anonymity, even if the class knows who is writing the
material because of logins. It is much
easier to type some forms of information than it is to verbally speak it to the
person’s face. Therefore students need
to have a thorough understanding of what constitutes acceptable behavior. They
also need to understand that there are ethical issues associated with sharing
the information they see or hear from classmates, and that in order to protect
all students, classroom lessons will be considered confidential. Use of technology in classrooms requires some
ethical considerations because there are issues related to technology usage
that are of special concern in a classroom setting.
References
Heilferty,
C.M. (2011). Ethical considerations in the study of online
illness narratives: A qualitative
review. Journal of Advanced Nursing, 67(5), 945-953.
Lin,
H. (2007). The ethics of instructional technology: issues and coping strategies
experienced by professional technologists in design and training situations in
higher education. Educational Technology
Research and Development, 55, 411-437. Retrieved from http://edweb.sdsu.edu/courses/ed690mb/ethics.pdf.
Newby,
T. J., Stepich, D. A., Lehman, J. D., Russell, J. D., &
Ottenbreit-Leftwich, A. (2011). Educational
technology for teaching and learning (4th ed.). Boston, MA: Pearson
Education, Inc.
Times
Higher Education (2010). Blog
confidential. Issue 1957, 22-22.
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