Safe, Legal, and Ethical Use of Digital Information and Technology

In Nancy Willard's opinion article on protecting children in this technological age, she references the Protecting Children in the 21st Century Act adding a provision to the Children's Internet Protection Act (CIPA). This provision requires schools to educate minors in safe, legal and ethical use of technology.

Safe

Leslie Strahan noted that CIPA addresses "children's access to obscene or harmful internet content". Schools, as required by CIPA, must enact an internet policy which encompasses a variety of internet issues. Overall schools' policies must address how to screen and restrict inappropriate content online. Students should not be able to uncover inappropriate websites or images with simple information searches while at school. Students should also be taught about security when dealing with e-mail, chat rooms, or other electronic communication applications such as Facebook or Instagram. I have been shocked to hear from students that they do not realize what information should not be shared with the electronic world. Adults need to be vigilant in monitoring students and make safety a priority.

Legal 

Strahan continues, stating that "whenever someone uses the works of another person- pictures, words, music, etc. that is copyrighted- that is stealing unless due credit is given." Teachers are often thorough when teaching students about plagiarizing online content. In fact, there are many different websites that allow someone to enter a section of a student's writing to determine if it has been copied from other works. It is my opinion that students are not adequately taught about copyright legalities when dealing with online content unrelated to writing such as images. I had not been explictly taught these legalities until my first semester at college!

Ethical

In Strahan's presentation, she supports CIPA's argument that schools "must provide for educating minors about inappropriate online behavior". As I stated before, students are often unaware of the misuse of intellectual property and copyright materials. They do not have the sufficient background information of what is right and wrong when pertaining to cyber ethic issues. Education World also has a list of ethical issues observed in schools that they believe need to be taught. Their list of the "Ten Commandments of Computer Ethics" includes: 

• do not use a computer to harm others
• do not look around in another person's computer or files
• do not use a computer to copy or steal anything you have not paid for
• do not take anyone's intellectual property

The last "commandment" from Education World states that computers should be used only in ways that show consideration and respect for others. This brings up the issue of cyber-bullying. I have found StopBullying's website to be extremely informative on bullying both inside and outside of the classroom, online and off. 

Much to the dismay of my grandmother, the internet will not be going away any time soon. If anything, the internet will continue to advance at an alarming rate. Teachers and other adults need to inform students on the safety, legalities, and ethics of technology use in this day and age.