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This blog was create to post my reflections to questions that I have to answers weekly. I will post links to all of my projects created for IT 645.



Saturday, April 17, 2010

Week 13 Legal, Social, and Ethical Issues in the Digital Age


What are the legal, social, and ethical issues arising in the Digital Age? Summarize each.

- Legal Issues -

Copyright & Fair Use

Copyright protects the rights of the owner of intellectual property. Generally materials that are protected by copyright should not generally by used without the owner’s permission, but there are times when using the material is permitted. (Lever-Duffy and McDonald, 400)
According to Lever-Duffy and McDonald, fair use guidelines describe circumstances in which teachers can use copyrighted material in face-to-face instruction. The TEACH Act stated the guidelines for using copyrighted material in distance learning. To make sure that you use all the information correctly, you should ask yourself four questions:
1. What is the intended use?
2. What type of work is it?
3. How much of the work do you intend to use?
4. What impact does this kind of have on the market for the work?

Privacy
Every adult and child in the United States has the right to privacy. Before using information about child, you should get permission from the parents. The right to privacy is one of the significant issues in the Digital Age. Before the law COPPA (Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act) was passed in October 1998, internet sites that were constructing for children would ask for personal information like name, address, phone numbers, and photos without asking for permission for the parents. As future teachers, we should make sure that we have written permission from all parents of our students before we post any information about a child on the internet. The Federal Trade Commission created a website that provides information to children, parents, and teachers (www.ftc.gov/kidzprivacy ).
As a teacher, you should remember that privacy is just as important offline as online. Software that contains information such as personal information and grades should allows be protected. Most schools have the teachers save information on a network, so you should make sure that all the information is password protected.

Accpectable use
As a teacher is your responsbility to make sure that all the students use the available technolgy is the appropriate manner. You would not allow any of your students to bring questionable paper into your class, so you should make sure that you do not allow the students look at sites that are questionable. All teachers need to make sure that all the students know what is expectable and unexpectble. The students should be given a code of ethics for computer use. The teacher needs to have the students and parents sign something stating that he or she understands the code and conquences for misusing the computer. All of the school computers have filtering software that blocks access to inappropriate sites.

Software Piracy
Software piracy is copying software to share with others or installing software on a computer when one copy was purchased. Just as it is illegal to copy a CD or DVD, it is illegal to copy software. Teachers should never copy software without having purchased the software. All schools and businesses must purchase a custom for the network or purchase a site license. All schools have rules regarding piracy. You should must sure that you have a copy of the rules and that you understand the rules.

Social Issues

Equity and accessibilty of technology are the most pressing social issues. National Telecommuciation and Information Administration conducted a study that found the 46% of household earning $35,000 to $49,000 have internet access and a home computer, 66% of househoulds earning over $50,000 have computer and internet access. This difference gives the last group a head start on developing computer skills. It also means that when it comes time for the students to have to conduct internet research the wealthier children have more internet access. The inequity of access is sometimes referred to as digital divide. Teachers should learn to become sensitive to their students access level.

Ethical Issues

Freedom of Speech
The Internet is basically a forum for sharing information and opinions. Some of the information is factual and some of the information is solely based on personal information. Because of freedom of speech, it is near impossible to restrict a person for stating his or her opinion. The responsibility of making sure that a child uses the correct information is left in the hands of the parents and teachers. Teachers need to be aware of their responsibilty to guarantee students “digital safety”.

Privacy
Privacy is an important issue is the United States. Teachers and students must remember that when he or she signed the computer usage form, the manual stated that the school has access to all the files on the network. Network administrators can monitor activity, and software can track what is said and sent over the network.


Academic Dishonesty
As a students, we all have seen the sites that offer services such as writing a term paper for students. This is an example of academic dishonesty (AD). Even if you copy and paste information from a site without giving credit to the author, you are committing AD. Most schools use antiplagiarism software to make check students’ works. The software compares the students’ works with well-known authors’ works as well as works posted on the Web.

2 comments:

  1. I really enjoyed reading your detailed reflection. Great job.

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  2. Good point on academic dishonesty - I see so many times that teachers do not stress that this is stealing another's work and let studenst just copy and paste and turn it in as their own work. I think the new software programs that are available, such as, Turnitin, are a great thing to have!

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