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| Reflections and Planned Actions |
Personal Practices
I am a digital
immigrant. I was born two years before
ARPANET was developed, and in my mid-twenties when World Wide Web was
introduced to the world (Mallia, 2013).
Although, I’ve
loved all things technological since I programmed a TRS-80 and was elected
president of my high school computer science club. Still, for all that has been developed, I
have had to build my understanding and adapt to its use.
Today, my personal
Internet practices revolve around my desire to keep up with the news; to stay
in contact with distant and local friends; to find a good deal; and to be
entertained. I eliminated my land-line phone nearly 7 years ago and more
recently cut the cord to cable tv 3 years ago.
Having access to the Internet gives me the freedom to contact distant
loved ones using Skype, so the phone is no longer necessary. The Internet also allows me to disconnect the
TV from the expensive cable bill. Now,
Hulu, Netflix and Pandora fill in the entertainment needs at a much-reduced
cost. Gone too, is the newspaper
subscription. News is now an online
activity. Between the regional papers
and news sites along with access to the major news outlets, I can feed my need
for the news via the Internet.
Reflection on safety and ethical actions
I consider myself to
be an educated user. I take action to
keep my finances and myself safe while making use of the Internet. I only shop online with reputable companies,
most still have operate brick and mortar storefronts. In addition, I monitor my accounts to verify
charges and monitor for fraudulent activity.
I am a social media
user who understands and applies privacy settings. Monitoring for policy changes that requires
me to review and reset access privileges to my account. I don’t wish to talk to strangers; rather,
social media provides me a way to maintain contact with my distant friends and
relatives. I do not post many personal
images or refer to my child by name. I began
exercising this caution when my child was young and it remains my practice
today. I have not yet allowed my child
to have a social media account. She and
I have discussed it, and at 15 you would think she would be eager. In fact, she is the opposite. She hears talk about it at school and says it
is not worth her time. I’m
relieved. I share with her my use and
posts so she’s not a total novice. I use
news stories as a means of initiating conversations about appropriate and
inappropriate uses of social media.
I am aware of the
copyright laws and do not download questionable media. I only stream video from reputable sites such
as Hulu, Netflix and Amazon. In the
past, when wireless connections became available, I had a period of time where
my wireless connection was unprotected.
Living in the city meant my signal was reaching multiple houses
surrounding mine. I received a menacing
letter from my cable provider regarding an attempt to download an illegal copy
of a movie. Experience educated me to
maintain a password to protect my service from others’ illegal use.
I am aware of bias in the news and read from multiple
sources to get perspective. I enjoy CNN,
FOXNews, BBC and PBS news sites.
The two unethical behaviors that come to light upon
reflection are my habit of bypassing the required subscription to a regional
newspaper and copyright infringement by capturing and reposting cartoons and
images via social media. In reference to
the newspaper, it offers a free a 30-day trial via IP address; using an
incognito web browser allows me to circumvent this limitation. My practice of copy and pasting funny memes,
cartoons and images through my social media account is also infringing upon the
copyright law. I should provide a link
rather than the actual image.
Professional Practices: School District’s Acceptable Use Policy
My school district’s Acceptable Use Policy was recently
updated in 2012. Upon inquiry, I learned
our technology coordinator accomplished this task with input from our school
district librarians. I believed our
policy to be sufficient; however when comparing it to the Memphis City Schools
some weaknesses are notable. My school
district’s policy does not address email use by students. Our school district does not provide school
accounts to students. This does not mean
they aren’t using their personal email accounts via school infrastructure. In addition, my school district’ policy
appears to be two separate documents and not as cohesive as our example. I believe this policy should be reviewed for improvement.
My treatment of the Acceptable Use Policy is in need of
attention. Currently, the policy is
reviewed with all students at the first of the year. During which time, the stack of to-be-signed
papers go home to parents. I’m certain
they are signed without much review by most parents. I have personally rushed though the
obligatory signed paper ritual for my daughter.
The policy is then only references when a discipline referral has to be
written for a student being off task.
The most common infraction is streaming music.
My school district provides a required filter to eliminate
access to inappropriate websites.
Knowing that all filters are fallible (Anderson, Grant, & Speck, 2008), I do take additional steps to
protect my students. I use a classroom
monitoring software program that allows me to view the computer screen of all
students. During classwork time, as I am
moving around the room assisting individuals, I project the monitoring software
on the interactive white board, so the students know they are being
monitored. This helps encourage my
students to stay on task. I work to
prevent “down time” in my classroom. All
time is directed and students who finish work early can choose from a list of
enrichment options to prevent “free web browsing.”
I do not publish student work outside of my classroom. My building principal is apposed to cluttered
hallways. In addition, one employee
creates all articles published to the local paper. I can submit items for consideration;
however, in the seven years, I have only had one submission accepted and that
was in the initial year of beginning our STEM curriculum.
Analysis
Ethical Use of Resources
I make a stronger effort in my classroom to hold my students accountable for citing their sources as they complete projects. I introduce MLA reference formatting to students, following a discussion with my English-teaching colleagues some years back. They were expressing their concern that many students were unfamiliar with the process and syntax of citing sources. From that point, I made an effort to be certain students create a Resource Cited Page and include websites as well as images used. I have recently increased my emphasis on how fair use affects the images used in presentations. I am now stressing the knowledge and use of Creative Commons Attributions.In the past my efforts to address this topic ended poorly. I required a written research paper and guided my students through the process. The results were disappointing. Plagiarism was the result. The consequences were complex and resulted in my eliminating the assignment from assessment, due to pressure from parents and administration. I no longer tackle such concentrated writing assignments. Writing is limited to presentation style, or paragraphs. I still address plagiarism, but not through a developed unit. This superficial treatment equates to me hiding my head in the sand. Unacceptable. One way that I can immediately work to correct this is by modeling appropriate citations with materials used in the classroom (Fryer, 2002).
Future Strategies
In light of this reflection, I feel called upon to take three issues. First, I feel I should share the Memphis City Schools Acceptable Use Policy (AUP) with my school district’s technology coordinator. I would also like to request his assistance in subscribing to i-SAFE or some other online curriculum to standardize our required student and teacher training in regards to their Internet use while at school. In addition, I will consult with our public relations department, responsible for our school website, to encourage the posting of our district’s acceptable use policy online for parent and student access. The use of the school district's AUP to educate parents (i-SAFE, N.D.) can be served by making it available online along with a question and response section This leads to my second issue, whether or not the district adopts i-SAFE, I will research and develop an instructional unit to address the following key points regarding acceptable use: guidelines, reasons, and consequences. One idea is to place the students in groups and have them re-write our schools policy in common sense language enabling them to engage with the contents rather than the historical brief review.My final goal is to address my lack of formal instruction addressing the Internet hazard of cyber bulling. I will consult again with my school district’s technology coordinator to identify age appropriate instruction to use district wide. While this search for a district wide curriculum takes place, I shall follow Mirtschin (2008) advice and include videos addressing cyber safety with my students to spur conversations and have students develop avatar's for use with our online learning management system. Finally, through this reflective exercise I want to increase the rigor of my efforts to prevent plagiarism and cite references appropriately. To this end, I plan on meeting with my fellow English teaching colleagues to develop cross curriculum connections addressing both topics. This should involve hands-on practice evaluating web site content (Mills, 2006) and increase awareness of my practices in abiding by the fair use and copyright laws (Fryer, 2003).
It was Hlovate (2010) who wrote, “You'll never reach perfection because there's always room for improvement. Yet get along the way to perfection, you'll learn to get better.” I encourage all teachers to take on these tough issues; reflect upon your practices; and learn to get better!
References
Anderson, R.A., Grant, M.M., & Speck, B.W. (2008) Technology to teach literacy: A resource for K-8 teachers (2nd ed). Upper Saddle River, NJ; Pearson Merrill Prentice Hall.
Fryer, W. A. (2002). Copyright
101 for educators: Winter 2003. Retrieved from
http://www.wtvi.com/teks/02_03_articles/copyright.html
Hlovate. (2010). Versus.
Jemari Seni Publishing.
i-SAFE. (N.D.). Why do schools need AUPs? . Retrieved from http://www.isafe.org/imgs/pdf/education/AUPs.pdf
Mallia, D. (2013). When
was the internet invented. Retrieved from http://hnn.us/article/142824
Mills, S. C. (2006). Using
the Internet for active teaching and learning. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Merrill Prentice Hall.
Mirtschin, A. (2008, March 27). Keeping students cybersafe! Retrieved from http://murcha.wordpress.com/2008/03/27/keeping-students-cybersafe/
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