EDU 530: Technology in Education: Social, Ethical and Legal

Overview

The ever-growing uses of information technology in education have economic, political, and social implications. Availability of digital resources including the Internet for personal and educational use necessitates a critical review of educational practices in the use of those resources. Educational leaders, practitioners, and teachers therefore must understand the social, ethical, legal, and human issues surrounding the use of technology in education and know how to deal with those issues in an ethical manner.

This course is designed to enable and encourage learners with diverse backgrounds, characteristics, and abilities to deal with the issues of copyright, equity, access, and appropriate use of educational technology. It includes examination of equitable and ethical applications of technology in learning environments, reflection on the issues involving equity in the use of technology, examination of current standards for fair use of materials obtained using technology, and the development of a policy for ethical technology usage in instructional settings.

Links to Inappropriate Content

The majority of the content of this course necessarily focuses on the risks and dangers of Internet use by children. However, the course author assumes that adult students in this course are already familiar with examples of pornography, hateful expression, and pedophile advertising on the Internet and in other media. There are no links in this course to pornography sites, hate sites, or sites that promote the abuse of children in any way. In the interest of a respectful, academic environment, students are expected not to provide links to dangerous or offensive sites in their course papers or in the Forum.

Websites that are a unique problem to educators, such as sites that promote plagiarism, invite students to post personal information, or purport to educate while blatantly advertising to children, may not be familiar to students in this course. Examples of these websites are provided, and students may include more examples in their papers and on the Forum. These sites are not blatantly illegal or offensive, but their content is inappropriate to the ethical use of the Internet for education.

Introduction

Students enrolled in JIU’s School of Education will work with sponsors for their professional synthesizing projects to ensure their work addresses the authentic needs of specific learning communities. It is important for students to identify a sponsor early in the course in order for the sponsor to collaborate with the student on the project. You can read more about the sponsor and download the forms from the Sponsor Workbook.

Learning Outcomes

Upon successful completion of this course, students will be able to:

• Promote and enforce privacy, security, and online safety related to the use of the Internet by students.
• Identify, communicate, model, and enforce social, legal, and ethical practices to promote responsible use of technology in education.
• Promote and enforce environmentally safe and healthy practices in the use of technology.
• Promote practices that advocate for equity of access to technology resources that enable and empower all learners and educators.
• Develop/support policies that clearly enforce copyright law and assign ownership of intellectual property.
• Apply technology to enhance and improve communication, productivity and professional practice.
• Model and teach legal, ethical, and safe practices, as related to technology use.
• Effectively present information and make recommendations about technology and the Internet to a variety of stakeholders, including, but not limited to staff, parents, and students, and promote effective strategies for increasing the use of technology resources in support of student instruction.

Required Texts
EDU 530 texts are available from the JIU/MBS bookstore