Ethics Role Playing Activity
Context
In class we were asked to get in groups of 3-5. We were each
given a role to act out about ethics and legality. I was in a group
that was asked to play out this scene: We were to have 2 five-year-old
children and 2 parents. The five-year-olds were to act like they
were looking up a Sesame Street web site and accidentally found a pornography
site. We then acted this role out to the rest of the class and then
decided if this was legally wrong or ethically wrong. We watched
other roles too. One other role was about a person who bought a computer
game. Another person asked if she could download this same game on
her computer. This is against the law. We are not supposed
to download anything on our computer that someone else has bought; we are
to buy it ourselves.
Our professor, Mary Ferrell, gave us these handouts to include in this
artifact:
1. “Policy On Acceptable Use of Computers” (2 handouts)
2. “Netiquette (Internet Etiquette)
Ms. Ferrell explained to us that we will one day have to send home letters to parents, like the one she gave us, that explains school policies of acceptable use of computers. They require student and parent signatures in order to prove that each student and parent know what is expected of them while using school computers. The other handout was guidelines for composing effective email messages. Ms. Ferrell explained to us that chain mail is against the law and are also very annoying.
Also included in Artifact 7 is a printout from http://www.hoaxbusters.ciac.org/HBUrbanMyths.shtml. This web site is to inform people who use email that there are many hoaxes that end up being sent to many people by email. I found this very interesting. I have had many of these very hoaxes sent to me that I believed. I guess this proves that a person cannot always believe what is on the Internet.
Impact
I am going to be licensed to teach K-6 in North Carolina. I now
know that it is very important to make sure I understand the social, legal,
and ethical issues related to technology use so I can teach my future students.
After playing out different roles in class and obtaining handouts from
my professor, I now better understand legal and illegal issues related
to technology.
Alignment
Artifact 7 aligns with competency 14.3
of the Advanced Technology Competencies for Educators. As a teacher,
I will discuss ethical and legal issues of technology use. I will
one day use role play situations just like the ones we did in class to
help my students better understand these issues.