Most teachers at our school have a
Facebook profile and many use them to follow their friends and keep people in
the loop. This is such a great tool for keeping up to date with each other! As
teaching is such a social profession, we often find parents wanting to become ‘friends’
with us as relationships with each other progress through the year. This is
fine if we are vigilant and take extreme care not to post information that might
be construed as subjective to others as although we have only befriended the
odd parent here and there, everything we post on social media has the potential
to reach the masses. “When social media is involved, available guidelines for
our moral deliberation can be unclear, such as: who are participants, whose
data is it, what is private, and what are the consequences for now and in the
future” (Henderson, Auld & Johnson, 2014).
In this digital age we are constantly
faced with ethical dilemmas around the use of information we share as a school.
Often when parents and whanau enroll their children into our school they are
given the opportunity to have a say in whether they want their child’s photo to
be published on to social media or not for one reason or another. This is a
prime example of maintaining that ethical vigilance as we have had cases in the
past where this information has been inadvertently uploaded and caused a furore
when noticed by parents, whanau or their friends. To combat this, our school
Facebook page is stringently administered by only one person and the content is
limited to school notices, events and messages with any photos of students
being carefully vetted before posting.
The New Zealand Education Councils Code
of Professional Responsibility Standards, Nga Tikanga Matatika Nga Paerewa
applies to New Zealand registered teachers all the time including when using
social media. The Code of Professional Responsibility Standards states that
teachers have a commitment to maintaining public trust in the teaching
profession by demonstrating a high standard of professional behaviour and integrity
(Education Council, 2017). When taking this in account it is obvious that we
are fastidious in maintaing ethical behaviour when sharing appropriate
information on social media sites. The fact that teachers unavoidably act as
moral educators themselves (Howe, 1986) makes in especially impelling for them
to conduct their affairs ethically and be held publically accountable for their
actions (cited in Hall, 2001).
There are many challenges schools are
facing with the increased access and integration of digital technologies into
daily programmes. These challenges are very real and present a dilemma to
schools seeking to enhance student learning (Ministry of Education, 2015). With
this in mind, I believe as a school we are well on the way to effectively using
digital technologies when communicating with whanau and our wider community. We
regulary use Seesaw to share examples of student work and achievements but I think
we still have some way to go before we could consider using social media to
promote student learning. This is a difficult issue as, used skillfully and
ethically, social media has the potential to develop and strengthen
partnerships between the child, whanau and the teacher.
References
Education Council. (2017). Our Code Our
Standards: Code of Professional Responsibility and Standards for the Teaching
Profession. Retrieved from: https://educationcouncil.org.nz/content/our-code-our-standards
Hall, A. (2001) What
ought I to do, all things considered? An approach to the exploration of ethical
problems by teachers. Paper presented at the IIPE
Conference, Brisbane. Retrieved from http://www.educationalleaders.govt.nz/Culture/Developing-leaders/What-Ought-I-to-Do-All-Things-Considered-An-Approach-to-the-Exploration-of-Ethical-Problems-by-Teachers
Henderson, M., Auld, G., & Johnson, N. F. (2014). Ethics
of Teaching with Social Media. Paper presented at the Australian Computers in
Education Conference 2014, Adelaide, SA. Retrieved from: http://acec2014.acce.edu.au/sites/2014/files/attachments/HendersonAuldJohnson_EthicalDilemmas_ACEC_2014_0.pdf
Ministry of Education.
(2015). Digital technology - Safe and responsible use in schools.
Retrieved from http://www.education.govt.nz/assets/Documents/School/Managing-and-supporting-students/DigitalTechnologySafeAndResponsibleUseInSchs.pdf
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ReplyDeleteI think a key point in your blog is how social media needs to be used skillfully and ethically. I agree that social media has the potential to develop and strengthen partnerships between the child, whanau and the teacher if used with these traits in mind. However, due to varying levels of skills and knowledge about ethical dilemmas themselves, situations will continue to arise. This is true in this day an age where new apps, sites, and ways to communicate are opening up all the time. I think having somewhere to reference a particular situation, having open communication about potential ethical dilemmas and finding supportive ways to overcome them together as a community is a pretty sound way forward. What do you think Trev?
ReplyDeleteHey Cace, I agree with you in that the potential of technologies to evolve exponentially provides us with possibly even more ethical dilemmas to overcome in the near future. In my opinion there does need to be more accessible information on how to deal with these from trusted sources and maybe some form of parameters to guide the community when dealing with them. Good call!
DeleteHi Trevor,
ReplyDeleteI enjoyed reading your blog entry on ‘Influence of Law & Ethics’.
You make a good point about how developers have drawn the online community into the ‘alluring world of social media’. As we embark on our journey into this new digital age, I have observed that people have become almost addicted to their devices and social media in particular.
I openly encourage students to make use of their devices to support their learning; for example take our cell phones to copy notes or use it as a search tool if they do not have a suitable laptop or tablet. The down side to this is that when they have finished taking notes or whatever, the phone sits on their desk and it becomes a distraction for them as they receive a constant trickle of incoming messages or snap chats from their ‘online community’.
From my perspective, this causes me to be in something of a dilemma, because while I want to embrace technology, these distractions tend to frustrate me. What guidelines do you have for such situations?
We have a social media policy here at TNT which states that we should not engage with students in a social media context, I am not sure if this policy extends to whanau. I would love to use social media more to connect with whanau; but in doing so, doesn’t this open the possibility that children, may gain access to teachers’ online profiles? Wouldn’t this leave teachers a) in violation of policy? And b) potentially at risk?
In this increasingly digital, social media centric world, I think it would be important to give teachers dedicated training on social media platforms – failure to do so could result in expensive mistakes for some individuals.
Regards
Rod
Having not read the former comments, I will just pick up on the strand in your thread about 'parents as friends on fb'. Even as you 'like' something, people would have insight into your biases/preferences politically as an example. They could form 'judgements' of you and other dehumanizing thoughts. Whilst that would be water off most ducks backs, it highlights the extreme need for discernment in what we post. Teaching children that when they post, even if they remove the comment, it may have been reshared (gone "viral")... so please everyone pause before you post!
ReplyDelete