Potential Problems

Post to your blog: From the five potential problems listed on pp 214-216 in Roblyer, which may have the most impact on your classroom and students and why? How will you ensure you address these concerns in your lesson planning in your assignment and in the future?

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Potential Problems:
1. Accessing Sites with Inappropriate Material 
2. Safety and Privacy Issues for students 
3. Fraud on the Internet
4. Computer viruses and hacking
5. Copyright and Plagiarism 

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Out of the 5 potential problems, 3 of the hit home most for me. Digital citizenship is something that our school needs to address more explicitly and we are currently looking at a whole school approach and developing a curriculum to meet our community needs that we hope to roll out next academic school year. This is going to take a lot of conversations and perspectives before we get it the way we want.

There is so much content online that at some point students are likely to access sites with inappropriate material on them. As teachers, we should be directing our students towards sites we approve of through web quests or other online activities. It would be good as a class to generate some good sites for searching for information on instead of just typing into Google. Students also need to learn what sites have valid information and which ones should not be there starting point for research (ie. Wikipedia). Students also need to be taught how to search. This means how to use keywords and use advanced search functions to narrow their search to get the information they actually want to find.

The safety of students is always a high priority for any school. It is more difficult to keep students safe online in a digital world that is difficult to navigate at times. Students need to learn how to use the internet safely and keep their information private. Students should be taught what information is appropriate to give online, how to create and keep safe passwords, what environments are safe to communicate with other people online and what to do if cyberbullying takes place (Roblyer & Doering, 2014, p. 215). Again, education is important.

There are so many instances when students plagiarise others' work unknowingly. Students need to be taught from an early age that you can't just copy someone else' s work. This starts with learning how to take notes, how to reference others' work and also how to check that you haven't accidentally copied someone's work using sites that prevent plagiarism (Roblyer & Doering, 2014, p. 216).

I think with all three of the issues bolded, it is important to take a proactive approach and be open and honest with students by opening the lines of communication. Students need to be taught how to navigate their digital presence online in a safe manner. Teachers should also use teachable moments as they arrive. Therefore teachers should not just get mad and scold a student for finding something inappropriate online but rather, use it to show how the situation could have been avoided and what steps could be taken in the future.

References

Roblyer, M. D., & Doering, A. H. (2014). Integrating educational technology into teaching [Sixth Edition].