Legal and Ethical Contexts in my Digital Practice

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Activity #5 – Legal and ethical contexts in my digital practice

 “Teaching in schools has long been considered a moral activity (Wilson, 1967; Tom, 1984; Goodlad, Soder and Sirotnik, 1990) largely because it is recognized that how teachers fulfil their public duties influences the lives of vulnerable young people.”  Hall, (2001, p1).

I viewed the first video (tweeting teacher who likes to party) and just groaned.  I keep my Facebook clean and I do not ‘friend’ students unless I haven’t taught them for many, many years.  Even then…I take a long time to consider ‘Yes’ or ‘No’?  'Friending' parents also takes some time to consider.

According to the Code of Ethics for Certified Teachers, the professional interactions of teachers are governed by four fundamental principles:

·        Autonomy to treat people with rights that are to be honoured and defended

·        Justice to share power and prevent the abuse of power

·        Responsible care to do good and minimise harm to others

·        Truth to be honest with others and self

Doing the ‘right thing’ is constantly in my mind. These principles are considered during my daily interactions with students, whanau and colleagues while I carefully observe how my actions may impact upon these groups of people.  At times however, I also consider the actions of parents where other people’s children may be impacted upon.  For example, parents taking photographs of their child during a Kindy-school visit and other class students appear in the photographs too.  The parent wants to post these to Facebook. 

The dilemma is, many of our parents are avid social media users and posting images of themselves and/or family members does not involve in-depth consideration.  Not a problem yet, if other children have been ‘captured’ within this image especially in my class, a parent does not have permission to post.  Or…they must edit and alter it so they can J  I’ve only had this situation occur a couple of times without incident, and parents involved have been most apologetic.  My moral and ethical duty to my present Whanau is, I am caring for the safety and well-being of their children.  My moral and ethical duty to new Whanau is, I am letting them know when their child starts school, I will care for them in this manner too.

Our class has a wikispace where I embed many online resources I use for various topics to support learning in my class (eg brain breaks, topic).  Children do not directly access these independently unless they click on YouTube clips too many times which means they will be directed to this site, in which case they are to click off the screen immediately and let me know.  Ipad apps are pre-loaded and do not require internet access.  However, if an unexpected moment does occur where I search for an image via the internet, my children must close eyes, turn around while I pull out the TV cord and turn down the volume…no, not extreme.  I have 5 year olds.  If I misspell a word and an inappropriate image pops up, I could be ‘doing-a-whole-lotta-talking’ in the afternoon at pick-up time!  My ethical duty to my children is ‘I must keep them safe and minimise harm’ and be honest about why we ‘do the things we do’.

At the beginning of each year, parents sign consent forms which in part, allows me to post images/videos of their children to our class wikispace and allows children to view websites during learning time (resources embedded into our class wiki).  Parents are encouraged to engage in discussions with their child regarding their safety and behaviour when viewing online resources.  Our forms are very basic – an issue.  Another issue is when these forms are signed and returned, I already know, these discussions have not occurred for many families.  Parents seem complacent to the possible dark side of the internet and merely return the signed form.

I do not want to scare parents of any dark implications social media/the internet can cause, but I would like parents to have a deeper consideration of what it means for child images to be posted online before they indicate ‘Yes’ on the form.  My intentions are honest and images are used for good purposes however, images can be stolen…and being aware is only one aspect of keeping digi-safe.

References:

Collste, G. (2012).  Applied and professional ethics.  Kemanusiaan, 19(1), p17-33.  Retrieved from https://app.themindlab.com/media/12728/view

Educational Council.  (n.d.).  About the code of ethics for certified teachers.  Retrieved from https://educationcouncil.org.nz/content/about-code-of-ethics

Hall, A. (2001). What ought I to do, all things considered? An approach to the exploration of ethical problems by teachers. Paper presented at the IIPE Conference, Brisbane. Retrieved from http://www.educationalleaders.govt.nz/Culture/Developing-leaders/What-Ought-I-to-Do-All-Things-Considered-An-Approach-to-the-Exploration-of-Ethical-Problems-by-Teachers