An ethical dilemma that I have faced in my own practice, that is linked to digital or online access or activity was when we found that some of our children were misusing our email system and sending nasty messages to each other.
Our students are given Google Accounts at year 3. Parents sign a permission slip in accordance with Google requirements and as a part of school policy, to allow their children to have access to these accounts. Children sign user agreements that outline the expectations of how they will interact with others online and how they are expected to conduct themselves. We refer to our expectations often during each day in the classroom and have also provided cyber safety lessons and resources. There are no excuses for our children to be misbehaving online.
Unfortunately 2 of my children have chosen to do so. One of the children came to me and showed me some emails she had received from another. To be fair they weren’t horribly bad but still not an appropriate use of technology. Also bordering on possibly becoming cyber bullying.
My ethical dilemma was 2 fold. Do I tell the parents? Was it bad enough? Also do I cut access for those students.
In discussion with colleagues I decided to suspend their accounts and leave parents out at this point. When the children arrived and asked why they could no longer access their accounts I spoke to them about what they had done and why. I asked them to come up with alternative ways that they could have dealt with their issue. They concluded that just talking to each other either on their own or with a mediator would have been more effective and caused less drama. When I mentioned the fact that it was almost cyberbullying the students were mortified and sorry. I gave them access to their accounts again only to receive an email from one of the parents asking why their child’s account had been suspended as they were confused.
This brought up another dilemma for me. How is it that they were able to email each other nasty things? Was anyone else doing it too? How often had I actually checked their accounts. When might I have time to do so????
We use Hapara for exactly this reason, so that we can track what our students are doing online. The students know that we can see what they are doing so I have never had an issue before. My colleague and I did go through the rest of the classes docs and found a few children who were doing off task things but no more emails...Thanks Goodness!!!
A potential ethical dilemma in practice for me is around my social media use. I enjoy Facebook, Instagram and Snapchat as I use it to keep in touch with different groups of friends and family.
I am becoming more aware of things that I post as I have recently had friend requests from children and parents in my class. This is sometimes a concern as I need to vet what I post more carefully knowing that they are now looking at my page. If I have a night out or an event that I want to post pics of I now have to post more selectively. I’ve toyed with blocking specific people so that they can’t see but have come to the conclusion that it is impossible to block everyone. Being careful and is a more sensible and mature solution. For my own safety and for my professional safety as I am aware that employers can and will look at social media.
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