How Ethical Issues are Being Addressed

How ethical issues are being addressed

Step 1 (What): Ethical Dilemma

A student/s abuse of a digital device use in the classroom. It is difficult to have eyes on all things when students have been set with a task on the school COWS (laptops). With 21st century learning, the only way forward is giving students the experience to do so. Digital learning plays a huge part, therefore it is important for myself to provide students with these opportunities. I strongly believe that gamification plays a huge role in student engagement and achievement. Students enjoy using digital devices however, students quickly lose my trust by not doing what they are supposed to be doing and visit inappropriate sites. Two students used Facebook inappropriately and the whole school had to suffer the consequences. Facebook was blocked. 

Step 2 (So What): Ethical decision making framework – Enrich (2011)
Not following in class rules and expectations when using a school digital device is breaking an agreement. According to Ehrich et al. (2011), when a critical incident occurs there are a group of people or individuals that sways your decision to what happens next. The organisational culture came to mind at first and the question lingered around in my head, “Was my organisation to blame?”, did I have good procedures, expectations and eyes when students are on the computer? In terms of professional ethics, I believe that students know and understand that what they have done is wrong and inappropriate. If they’ve done it once they can do it again. As part of school policy students fill in a cyber­safety contact when enrolling into the school, so parents and students are fully aware of the school policies. Thereafter, students make their choice/s and can choose to ignore it or act upon it. After the Facebook incident, all teachers including relievers signed an internet agreement. Students also signed another agreement which the teacher had to read aloud and explain fully. Student Agreement Staff Cyber Safety Use Agreement. 

Step 3 (Now What): I have created a digital citizenship lesson plan. It has the achievement objectives followed by the learning experiences and weekly breakdown. Digital Citizenship Plan. It is written in ‘Our Code, Our Standard’, that it has been developed to “provide learners, their families and whanau, their communities and the public with trust and confidence in teachers and the profession” (Education council, 2017 p6). I had the belief that I could trust my students, which I do with most students however there are a few students who test you and your patience as a teacher. I put in place a buddy system (which works well with working collaboratively). Students are buddied up, and I choose their buddies so that I can have more than two eyes.

Our school uses Teacher Dashboard (Hapara) which has a Highlights feature that displays the current screen that students are on. I display that onto the class t.v. It is visible to the entire class. The wrongdoer is easily caught and the class decides on the punishment. Net­safe have worked together with the Ministry of Education and compiled a guide for schools in ‘Digital Technology – Safe and responsible use in schools. This resource includes contents in dealing with the Roles and Responsibilities of a student when having access to digital technology. This has given me more options of what I can do, to be net­safe and keeping students on task while at the same time, being respectful when working on any given task using the school laptops / iPads. 

Reference:

Ehrich, L. C. , Kimber M., Millwater, J. & Cranston, N. (2011). Ethical dilemmas: a          model to understand teacher practice, Teachers and Teaching: theory and practice Ministry of Education. (2015). DIGITAL TECHNOLOGY Safe and responsible use in schools. Wellington: New Zealand.