The World Wide Web is an amazing resource for teachers today, but with its potential to be a powerful educational tool comes the responsibility to teach and monitor its safe and ethical use. Students today are most often the first members of their families to access the world-wide-web as part of their public school education. Parents often have less experience and knowledge of computer technology and its applications than their children. For this reason it is difficult for even the most concerned parents to teach their children what they need to know about the rules for negotiating this brave new world of information and communication technology. In Cyber Ethics The New Frontier, Baum (2007) outlines the hazards of providing web access to computer savvy students without outlining the risks and responsibilities for their safe and ethical use. Baum details instances of plagiarism that range from cutting and pasting documents without citing sources to buying term papers written by professional paper mills (2007). Hacking is prevalent and is often perceived by both children and adults as a clever form of mischief rather than a crime. Downloading music and video without paying for them is prevalent. All of these crimes are on the rise.
Teachers, along with parents are the key individuals society assigns to communicate ethical standards to children. Schools must work together to tighten the structure around the use of Internet technology in the classroom. In other words educators must establish and enforce standards of Internet behaviour in much the same way they establish classroom and school and district standards of conduct. Just as social responsibility is taught within the social studies curriculum, there is a need for schools to establish a core curriculum for teaching ethical behaviour on the World Wide Web (Baum, 2007).
As pre service teachers we must recognize that we must take the initiative to use all the resources available to responsibly teach students to make ethical choices when they use computer and information technology. Baum (2007) suggests five steps teachers can take towards achieving this goal for their students:
1. Take the initiative to research and implement a CyberEthics curriculum in your school district.
2. Teach CyberEthics in the classroom using engaging examples students’ research for themselves using technology and other sources. Case studies can be used for debates, reports or class discussions.
3. Access information and lesson plans for teaching CyberEthics from the Internet.
4. Establish a document with the students that outlines the acceptable use of information technology in their school. Such a policy can be made age appropriate by simplifying the language for younger children and including detail and research support for older children.
5. Establish a pledge for students to use the web in an ethical fashion. Many schools already have a contract they use that outlines the school and district policy for student use of computer and information technology that students and their parents must read and sign.
We have included a list of related website urls:
This is a Cyberethics Lesson Plan for Elementary and Middle School that includes a glossary and links for follow up lessons and extensions
http://www.cybercrime.gov/rules/lessonplan1.htm
Cyberethics for Kids is a kid friendly site that explores the ethical challenges they will face with scenarios with multiple choice answers each with a different consequence outlined. Lots of information
http://www.cybercrime.gov/rules/kidinternet.htm
Copyright Kids is a site dedicated to introducing students to the basics of copyright concepts and law.
http://www.copyrightkids.org/
Be CyberSmart Curriculum! This site offers free Lesson activities for teaching internet safety and responsibility for grades K to 12.
http://www.cybersmartcurriculum.org/home/
Question for thought. Teachers can present lessons on cyberethics and establish guidelines for ethical use of information technology at school, but ethics and morals are distinctly human qualities based on values and connections children have to other people. Does information technology distance children too much from the human consequences associated with cyber crime? For example, most children are taught right and wrong when parents and caregivers show them the damage they have done, that is they have to look into the eyes of another person who has been wronged. Can we get kids to make an emotional connection to the consequences for their misconduct on the web?
