- Discuss the possible ethical issues involved.
- Determine if the safety or well-being of anyone is in jeopardy.
- What advice, strategy or policy would you recommend to individuals or schools based on this scenario?
- Share any real-life incidents or personal connections related to the scenario.
A middle school is using Google Docs as a writing and collaborative tool for peer reviewing. Juan and Jeremy have used the platform instead to exchange comments that involve name-calling and racial slurs. Jeremy’s parents object when his account is suspended claiming it will negatively impact his academic progress.
Scenario 2: Blocking all access
After hearing a presentation at a conference, middle school principal Mr. Johnson has banned all Web 2.0 tools for students and teachers including Facebook, Skype, YouTube, wikis, blogs and Flickr. A number of teachers and many students are upset with this decision but Mr. Johnson cites legal reasons for blocking the sites.
Scenario 3: Anonymous blogging
Ms. Gifford learned about a new blog that does not require the arduous process of setting up individual accounts for each student. This seemed like an easy way to jump into blogging as a class. Ms. Gifford talked about acceptable use with her students but did not inform the principal or parents of her instructional goals or objectives for using a class blog. Because students did not have accounts, they were able to post comments on the blog anonymously. Although, this protected student privacy, it snowballed into a barrage of inappropriate and harassing comments. Ms. Gifford quickly shut the blog down and went back to the drawing board.
Scenario 4: Age restrictions
Ms. Applegate, a Spanish teacher, heard about an interactive poster tool called Glogster. She played around with it and made some really cool electronic posters about different Spanish-speaking countries to use as visuals with her students. Her students liked the posters so much that she decided to have students make some of their own outlining some key features of different Latino holidays. Ms. Applegate discovered in the computer lab while her 8th grade students were creating accounts that Glogster asked students to verify that they were at least 13 years of age or older. This didn’t pose a problem for her 8th graders but Ms. Applegate panicked because the following period she planned to do the same activity with her 6th graders.
Scenario 5: Email complication
Mr. Lopez, a social studies teacher, has been using the same PowerPoint to introduce content on the electoral-college for many years now. He recently saw a Prezi his high school-age daughter created for a class and asked her to teach him how to create a Prezi. He was able to link images and video content instead of just text and found that his students seemed more motivated and lively in a debate about voting politics. He decided to have his 7th graders create Prezis in small groups outlining their main points for the election debate. What Mr. Lopez discovered in the computer lab is that as students were creating Prezi Edu accounts and told to use their school provided email when registering, they could not activate their Prezi accounts because the school email settings only allow emails internally, and therefore cannot receive emails from outside the district. Mr. Lopez’s assignment was suddenly dead in the water.
Scenario 6: Course management overload
Ms. Carlson is excited to use Edmodo, a course management system similar to Moodle with her students. Although Edmodo isn’t officially supported by the tech department like Moodle is, she is excited to use it because she finds it much more intuitive to use and she likes the interface better than Moodle. Ms. Carlson is vigilant about the privacy settings, has informed her principal and parents of her instructional goals and objectives. Her students jump on board and post to the discussion at record numbers. Ms. Carlson is pleased to see such motivated dialogue on a novel that had previously felt like pulling teeth. Two weeks into the unit, she receives a parent complaint. The complaint is as follows:
Dear Ms. Carlson, Mr. Miller, Mr. Hamilton and Ms. McIntyre,
Although my son is a motivated and active participant in all of your classes, I am concerned that the school does not seem to have a unified course management system. He is using Moodle in Math, Edmodo in English, Schoology in Science, and Kidblog in Social Studies. Furthermore, all of these sites require different logins and passwords. As a parent, I am having a difficult time keeping this all straight and am requesting that the school discuss this issue and figure out a more streamlined approach.
Thank you for your consideration, A supportive but confused parent
Scenario 7:
Ms. Jansen, a special ed. teacher, has been using Screencasting in her class to post review screencasts of her lessons and study materials. These screencasts have been heavily used by students and she has received glowing emails from parents thanking her for going this extra distance. Ms. Jansen decides it’s time to have her students create their own screencasts. She struggles with how best to post and share their screencasts and decides to use a class YouTube account/channel. Because some students want to do screencasting from home, she provides students with the class YouTube username and password so they can upload their videos from home. Two disasters ensue: 1.) Students post more than just their screencasts including inappropriate random YouTube videos as well as change the privacy settings of the account. 2.) Students post video content of themselves and their peers and the teacher discovers that some of these students have “no photo” stipulations on file in the office. Before Ms. Jansen can even blink, these videos have been shared/linked to Facebook pages and have an assortment of inappropriate comments posted from outside users.
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