Activity 9: Fitness Assessment

Scenario 3  Ms. Applegate, a Spanish teacher, heard about an interactive poster tool called Glogster. She played around with it and made some really cool electronic posters about different Spanish-speaking countries to use as visuals with her students. Her students liked the posters so much that she decided to have students make some of their own outlining some key features of different Latino holidays. Ms. Applegate discovered in the computer lab while her 8th grade students were creating accounts that Glogster asked students to verify that they were at least 13 years of age or older. This didn’t pose a problem for her 8thgraders but Ms. Applegate panicked because the following period she planned to do the same activity with her 6th graders.

Discuss the possible ethical issues involved.

Ms. Applegate would absolutely need to change her lesson for the 6th graders.  As for the 8th graders, I think she is within ethical boundaries of age limits.  I would assure the parents are notified of all lessons and assignments either on the initial syllabus or on her web page.

Determine if the safety or well-being of anyone is in jeopardy.

If she goes a head and allows the 6th graders to log on and lie about their age, then yes, their well-being is in jeopardy.  This allows them to feel as though they can lie about their age on any other media out there. 

What advice, strategy or policy would you recommend to individuals or schools based on this scenario?

I like Bri Oachs idea of having "the district or building to create a checklist of things to consider before proceeding with using a particular tool with a class."  This may be a good assignment for your next course.  Ms. Applegate could easily form a new lesson. One idea would be to have her 6th graders view the 8th grade projects on the smart board or computers, then review/edit the 8th graders work (on paper).  They could add ideas for the 8th graders to program the next day.

Share any real-life incidents or personal connections related to the scenario.

I have not used individual student accounts with technology, so I have nothing that relates to this scenario.

Scenario 7:  Ms. Jansen, a special ed. teacher, has been using Screencasting in her class to post review screencasts of her lessons and study materials. These screencasts have been heavily used by students and she has received glowing emails from parents thanking her for going this extra distance. Ms. Jansen decides it’s time to have her students create their own screencasts. She struggles with how best to post and share their screencasts and decides to use a class YouTube account/channel. Because some students want to do screencasting from home, she provides students with the class YouTube username and password so they can upload their videos from home. Two disasters ensue: 1.) Students post more than just their screencasts including inappropriate random YouTube videos as well as change the privacy settings of the account. 2.) Students post video content of themselves and their peers and the teacher discovers that some of these students have “no photo” stipulations on file in the office. Before Ms. Jansen can even blink, these videos have been shared/linked to Facebook pages and have an assortment of inappropriate comments posted from outside users.

Discuss the possible ethical issues involved.

I again agree with Bri Oachs... I feel this is extremely poor judgment in giving students any of the school/personal password and login information.  

Determine if the safety or well-being of anyone is in jeopardy.
 
This scenario has jeopardy of personal safety and well-being written all over it.  There are so many incidences that could occur because of pictures/names/videos being released.  Privacy issues. Harassment issues.  Could go on and on.

What advice, strategy or policy would you recommend to individuals or schools based on this scenario?

I agree with other's statements such as, "Teachers should put restrictions on passwords and students should not be allowed to post anonymously. If a teacher runs into a similiar situation she should make herself available after school for kids to catch up, or be realistic in the amount of time that needs to be allotted to finishing the assignment at school."  Never, Never give students password and ID information.  We all remember 5 or 6 years ago.... that was fun and the technology department was a bit busy.

Share any real-life incidents or personal connections related to the scenario. 

Again, I haven't used a lot of technology in the classroom, so I have not had the joy of a personal experience here.