VI. Social, Ethical, Legal, and Human Issues.
Teachers understand the social, ethical, legal, and human issues surrounding the use of technology in PK-12 schools and apply those principles in practice.Teachers:
- Model and teach legal and ethical practice related to technology use.
- Apply technology resources to enable and empower learners with diverse backgrounds, characteristics, and abilities.
- Identify and use technology resources that affirm diversity.
- Promote safe and healthy use of technology resources.
- Facilitate equitable access to technology resources for all students.
Standard VI:
Social, Ethical, and Legal Issues are areas that have really picked up recognition in the area of technology in the past few years.
- Ethical and Legal Matters:
- I think the area of largest concern has been in handling the Ethical and Legal issues in technology. In order to combat and educate children and teachers in these areas there has been special emphasis placed and resources created to help everyone get a better understanding of exactly what these issues are. The initial target to instruct was that of teaching members in education. I think it is smart that there was a push to educate the teachers on these ethical and legal topics first as once they researched and gained a better understanding on the topics they then would be able to teach and transfer the knowledge onto their students. There is one particularly great resource that I found that really simplifies the ethical and legal issues that was created by Hall and Davidson and published in the Technology and Learning magazine. This chart really simplifies and offers a quick reference to any questions educators may have in the area of Ethical and Legal manners. I also have a list of great resources that I have read to give me a better understanding on the topics:
Copyright Articles:
- 1. Copyright Law and New Technologies
Link:
http://www.education-world.com/a_curr/curr280c.shtml
2. To Copy or Not to Copy - That is the Question
Link:
http://www.aea2.k12.ia.us/Tutorials/Copyright/Copyright_.html
3. Fair Use of Copyrighted Materials
Link:
http://www.utsystem.edu/ogc/intellectualproperty/copypol2.htm
4. The Technology, Education and Copyright Harmonization (TEACH) Act
Link:
http://www.ala.org/washoff/teach.html
By educating myself first it has really made it easier for me to explain to my students why it is that Plagarism (of course with first graders I simply say, "copying from a book or website") is not allowed and that our information that we write down in our projects must be correctly identified. You can see in the Animal Template in my presentation I already have the resource posted to remind the children that we must document all information that we include in our work.
- Equitable Learner Access and Opportunity :
- My unit and any projects that I do for the entire class are done entirely at school. I could allow children to take their projects home but this would cause potential for many issues that would be hard to resolve. First not all children have the same access at home. Some students don't even have computers or if they have computers they may not have access to the Internet so if would not be reasonable to expect projects to be worked on or completed at home. Secondly, if I were to allow children to do projects at home issues of compatibility would be a major concern. I have dealt with many situations, as a troubleshooter, where a fifth grade teacher has asked the student to complete the work at home. The student does this spending hours of their time in finishing the project only to come to school and find out that they have Office XP or Word Perfect two formats that our school does not support consistently at this time so they can't complete or show the project at school anyway. Finally how would I know if the student did the work or if the parents did the work. Of course, you can tell the difference between a parent created project and student created but if the project is completed at school then you know the student put in the work.
Of course doing the project at school can also have some positive effects. As a teacher you could see how comfortable the children were with the computers and how they collaborated with classmates to solve computer troubles that may come up for them. Or if students were to complete their project before their fellow classmates they love to go around and assist their friends. This is great as more questions can get answered, but also in the fact that the best learning comes from teaching others and these students would be teaching their peers.
- Diversity:
- Creating cooperative, multicultural opportunities for all students. This includes encouraging all of the many different learning styles within the classroom environment to ensure that each and every child is allowed to achieve to their full potential. I include many opportunities throughout the year on diversity but here are three examples:
- St. Urho's Day - March 16 is a day of celebration in Finland! St. Urho, a vineyard worker, ran through the vineyards with a pitchfork yelling and chasing away the grasshoppers that were destroying the crops. To celebrate his feat we grew donuts and drank white grape juice in class.
- Christmas Around the World - Each first grade teacher selects a country and explains to the children how that country celebrates the Christmas Season. We then rotate the classes around to each teacher so the children learn about the different celebrations that take place in the different countries in the Christmas Season. I personally teach a unit on Kwanzaa!
- African American History Month - Each first grade teacher selects a famous African American in History and explains to the children what that person accomplished in their life and why it was important. We then rotate the classes around to each teacher so the children learn about the different African American people and what they accomplished in their life. I personally teach about Carl Lewis, who has the most gold medals of any Olympic Athlete in History.
- Safe and Healthy Technology Use:
- In my classroom when children are on-line they are monitored at all times. I do not have any students using e-mail accounts, and if we do send out a class or individual email then I or another adult compose a message that the student gives to us and then send the email via a secure account that I have established.
Early on in the beginning of the school year we discuss with the students computer use in the classroom. I have guidelines that I discuss in the beginning of the year and post throughout the year as a reminder to the students. I also send home a technology use slip that asks parents what they are comfortable having their child work on the computer as well as how comfortable the parent is with the posting of thier child's picture or projects on our classroom homepage.
Exhibits:
HINTS: Consider this standard both in terms of your unit (for example, did you discuss plagiarism with your students?) and in other aspects of your student teaching. How do you model the behaviors you want your students to practice? How do you use technology to reach all students? How did you apply your school's policy on student safety and privacy in preparing your portfolio? Did material in your unit help students understand and respect diversity? How did you structure activities to help students without computers at home access technology?
You can discuss concepts you learned in your own college course work, but should show how at least some of these played out in your student teaching.
LENGTH: Two to three short paragraphs are enough for most to respond to this standard.
NO EXHIBITS ARE REQUIRED. You may include exhibits if it is relevant to the unit you taught but it is optional.