Safe, Legal and Ethical

This is a very big issue and so i thought is warranted a 'special' posting...

Quite ironically, just as we were coving this in the course material, my own children came home from school with forms to sign regarding this year’s ITC Consent/Agreement.  I think that this is a very good model employed by the school, as the students had to sign a form to say how they were going to be responsible and how they were going to treat the electronic equipment and use it ethically and safely. It was also outlined what the consequences would be if they didn't.  And my child in prep, her form was illustrated with pictures of the do’s and don’ts so there is no chance that any child would not get the message. 

There was also a space for parents to sign, to consent to photos being taken and explicitly what the guidelines and boundaries for how these would be used, stored and accessed by teachers, other students and the school for the future. 
Open discussions with students about these issues and very important and there is no point sugar coating it.  It is important that children realise that these things are real and can impact their safety. They also need to understand that the internet can be a vessel for bulling, harassment, and an invasion of personal boundaries.  These lessons (along with constant reminders for the students entire school life) will go well beyond the classroom/school and right into their future lives in the digital world.

Another important aspect of any production, digital or not, is to acknowledge the source of the information or idea or item (photograph, tune, etc.).  You CAN NOT use other peoples “stuff” without a) asking first, or b) if they have published it for the greater community, you must reference where you found it.

I don’t think anyone is too young to learn this – we teach our very small children to ask if they want something, getting permission to use someone else’s work is no different…

Some useful sites that I will refer to once I’m teaching include:

• The Australian Government’s Cybersmart site
• The Cybersafety Help Button on the Department of Broadboard, Communication and the Digital Economy
• The American FBI Site – Safety Tips
• Smartcopying (the official Guide to Copyright Issues for Australian Schools and TAFE (note: I found this site through Susan McCowan’s Blog) 

AND, there is always a flip side, as much as we need to protect our students from predators, bullies and inappropriate material on the web, we also need to protect ourselves (as teachers) from the same thing, and often at the doing of students and/or parents.

During course tutorials we were privy to some insights from recent Education Queensland discussions and some information from Rob Priddley discussed in a presentation titled “Elluminate Live! - Cybersafety: managing inappropriate online behaviours” on the 22/08/2012.  From this the take home information for me was:

• teachers, but more likely school principals are becoming investigative detectives in charge of managing the behaviours of students, and increasingly parents, in the Web 2.0 environment
• social media is making it imperative to manage your “reputation” and the gossip channels that are dominating today’s communication throughout the school and general community (unflattering comments on Facebook being the most prevalent)
• students can be calculating and cunning and can really compromise teachers, some examples include: sign teachers up to internet sites (i.e. dating, pornography); make allegations in e-mails or social media, and; download inappropriate material (possibly bypassing school systems with hotspotting, etc.)

"Teachers are generally guilty until proven innocent"

Gary Holmes, pers comm., 2013