Legal and ethical contexts in my digital practice

Legal and Ethical Contexts in my Digital Practice

As a teacher, it my ethical, moral and legal role to ensure that the children I am teaching are in a safe environment when they are at school. For years this has been within the four walls of the classroom and within the school gates. With the rise in technology and a strong digital presence, this role has changed with the times as we enter the realm of keeping safe online - for both my learners and myself. I'll be the first to admit - it is difficult. Henderson, Auld and Johnson (2014) have said that "social media offer spaces for innovative teaching in classrooms." With the likes of Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, classroom blogs and online learning spaces, the lines need to be clear - what can we share and what stays offline. 

In the Ministry of Education document - Digital Technology - Safe and Responsible use in Schools (2015), they provide a guide to help navigate this new world of 'digital challenges' that come with the rise of technology in schools. Prevention, response and communication are the ways in which we can work together to protect our children and ourselves from these challenges that will continue to change and grow with technology. They discuss the importance of prevention - which is great, however I believe it only goes so far. There will always be 'dangers' that do manage to get through security software, or a new threat that children may find before we have had time to discover it ourselves, hence I believe the way in which we respond and communicate with our young people to be just as important.  

It is a fine line - these digital tools and online platforms provide our learners with so many opportunities, we need to make sure that restrictions are set to ensure that we are keeping them safe without suffocating the tools themselves.  Up until this year, we created online wiki spaces for all the children in our classes, where we shared their learning progress. Problem was, these pages were public - if you knew how to find them. While we never posted surnames, or individual photos - I can understand why we had families opt out and it was difficult to control. Where did our legal ethics lie in terms of what could be posted? It is an example of opportunities that we want to encourage but also need to be careful of. This year we have been using the app Seesaw for the same purpose, but with better security for children and their families - with great success. 

My year 1 classroom has class iPads and laptops for the children to use, while we have set activities that they can use and that we talk to them about often - we cannot stop everything, from pop up advertisements, youtube, accessing cameras and what they are allowed to do at home. As the senior children at school all have their own devices, this gets even more difficult - and prevention, response and communication is all the more important. Keeping up with what is happening on our devices, moving around and watching when they are being used and talking to the children are what we need to do - at the end of the day, first and foremost we need to check that what is happening is in the best interests of our learners. While, at the same time thinking about our own actions and how, more than ever before, what we do in our personal lives may have an impact on our professional lives. 

References

 Auld, G., Henderson, M., & Johnson, N. F. (2014) Ethics of Teaching with Social Media. Australian Computers in Education Conference, SA. Retrieved from http://acec2014.acce.edu.au/sites/2014/files/attachments/HendersonAuldJohnson_EthicalDilemmas_ACEC_2014_0.pdf

Ministry of Education (2015) Digital Technology. Safe and Responsible use in Schools. Retrieved from http://www.education.govt.nz/assets/Documents/School/Managing-and-supporting-students/DigitalTechnologySafeAndResponsibleUseInSchs.pdf