Activity 5: Legal and ethical contexts in my digital practice

Activity 5: Legal and ethical contexts in my digital practice

At my school, every child has to sign a consent form before they have access to the internet which involves agreeing to the our schools internet rules and also parent permission for online publishing.

The children sign the form which says they will abide by certain rules when accessing the internet.

• I will only respond to others work in a positive manner
• I will tell teachers or parents if I see anything I think is inappropriate
• I will be responsible for my own actions and understand that the school website is monitored and tracked by teachers
• I will use the site for educational purposes only
• I will keep my password secure and ask to change my password if needed
• I will not put any personal information online

Our school is a GAFE (Google Apps for Education) school. Every student from Year 3 to Year 6 have their own google accounts where they are able to access a range of apps such as google docs, sheets and slides. The students use their accounts every day and over a range of platforms. Whether it is at home or at school. We use Hapara alongside the google admin console to check in on what people are doing. Hapara is set up so that we can see highlights from what the students are doing between 8:30 and 3:30, so only during school hours.

My hypothetical dilemma is what happens if someone has left their account logged in to a home computer that they are using and someone else goes on websites they shouldn't? What happens if you see you see someone access inappropriate content while the student is at school?

Scenario:  Using Hapara you see someone accessing inappropriate content during school time and the student isn't on the Chromebook however they are logged in at home.

This is can be a very awkward situation. Education Council (n.d.) states that there is a "Commitment to Parents/Guardians and Family/Whanau" and one of the underpinning aspects of this is to "respect their privacy". The ethical dilemma would be...do you mention that you have seen inappropriate content or do you talk to the children about the importance of signing out of accounts when you are not around it?

Personally, the first thing that I would do would be to report this to my team leader. I would make sure that we discuss what the possible solution is and see if the nature of the inappropriateness was worth reporting to the parents to see if they can investigate further. After discussing with my team leader I would follow this approach.

I would talk to the students in my classroom about the importance of logging out and making sure that no one is using their accounts when they are not around (without giving any specific information). Not only is this a part of internet safety, it is also important to mention that the students also wouldn't want others posting things on their behalf especially if they are inappropriate. The students sign the internet consent form and part of that is that they keep their password secure and that they are responsible for their own actions. By neglecting to logout the students are leaving themselves open to all sorts of drama.

By approaching it this way I would respecting the privacy of the people involved and hopefully by approaching it in this manner the students would learn the importance of logging out.

Reference:

Education Council. (nd). Code of Ethics for Certificated Teachers. Retrieved from https://educationcouncil.org.nz/content/code-of-ethics-certificated-teachers-0