Activity 9: Fitness Assessment

Scenario 1: Collaboration = Harassment?A student is using Google Drive as a writing and collaborative tool for peer reviewing. Juan and Jeremy have used the platform instead to exchange comments that involve name-calling and racial slurs. Jeremy’s parents object when his account is suspended claiming it will negatively impact his academic progress.

1.  Discuss the possible ethical issues involved.
The ethical issues here include the inappropriate use of technology and the blatant disrespect and bullying between the students. The boys be using the commenting feature as the teacher intended - a sharing/peer reviewing tool. No matter the age of these boys, I would expect that they know what they are doing is wrong and not what the comments feature is intended for on this assignment. I also question first the teacher. Did he/she review guidelines for the assignment and for acceptable use of the Google Drive feature, as one hopefully would if the peer reviewing were being done in pairs or small groups in the classroom? Where was the commenting happening - at home or at school? If at school, the teacher should have been aware of the bullying soon enough that he/she could have put an end to it immediately. If at home, the parents should have been more aware of what was happening - be involved in their child's academics. I don't really think that the teacher eliminating their use of this platform will be detrimental to their education. There is a plethora of other ways to "show what you know." I agree with her decision - though I might make it temporary until the students have earned back the opportunity to use this platform.
2.  Determine if the safety or well-being of anyone is in jeopardy.
While I don't really think anyone's physical safety was at risk here, the emotional well-being of the students involved could be at stake, as bullying like this can have adverse effects in all areas of life.
3.  What advice, strategy, or policy would you recommend to individuals or schools based on this scenario? 
First of all, all students and their parents should have to sign an Acceptable Use policy for technology use at/related to school. I believe we already do this at Island Lake. Consequences for infractions should be stated ahead of time. A teacher should be clear and concise with his/her expectations at the time the assignment is given, including the potential consequences for infractions. Whatever the consequences, they should fit the "crime" and be addressed consistently from grade level to grade level, teacher to teacher, student to student.
4.  Share any real-life incidents or personal connections related to the scenario.
This isn't exactly the same, but last year I introduced Google Drive/Docs to my high performing Language Arts class as one way to submit assignments to me. I only had a handful of students utilize this opportunity (in order to have a Gmail email you are supposed to be 13 and my students are 10 and 11, so they needed parental permission to set up an account). The students who did created docs, presentations, etc. for the assignments I gave. One student, who had struggled all year to follow rules, turn in anything, stay focused in class, etc, really liked the new opportunity to use Google Docs and simply click "Share" with me. He shared a lot of his work, sometimes asking for early feedback, and it really seemed to increase his motivation to learn. One day however, I received a Valentine poem from him (part of an assignment I had given). The poem included a lot of inappropriate and far-too-mature language for a 5th grader. Long story short, he had copied and pasted some of it from the internet and I no longer accepted work from him through Google Drive and required him to go back to submitting work on paper or through email with his parents CC'd. Due to the nature of the situation, the student, and the family involved, I did not pull out the Acceptable Use policy was much clearer on my expectations and guidelines for utilizing technology to submit assignments.


Scenario 5: Email Complication
Mr. Lopez, a social studies teacher, has been using the same PowerPoint to introduce content on the electoral-college for many years now. He recently saw a Prezi his high school-age daughter created for a class and asked her to teach him how to create a Prezi. He was able to link images and video content instead of just text and found that his students seemed more motivated and lively in a debate about voting politics.  He decided to have his 7th graders create Prezis in small groups outlining their main points for the election debate.  What Mr. Lopez discovered in the computer lab is that as students were creating Prezi Edu accounts and told to use their school provided email when registering, they could not activate their Prezi accounts because the school email settings only allow emails internally, and therefore cannot receive emails from outside the district. Mr. Lopez’s assignment was suddenly dead in the water.

1.  Discuss the possible ethical issues involved.
Honestly, I don't see really any serious ethical issues happening here. Mr. Lopez definitely should have thought out this assignment a bit more (perhaps having his high school daughter, assuming she is in the same district and also has a school email, attempt to set up a Prezi Edu account first). The worst thing he did wrong was waste the students' time in class that day. 
2.  Determine if the safety or well-being of anyone is in jeopardy.
Again, I don't really see anyone's safety or well-being in jeopardy here. 
3.  What advice, strategy, or policy would you recommend to individuals or schools based on this scenario?
As I said in #1, my first thought would be that Mr. Lopez should have looked into the logistics behind setting up the accounts before he actually reserved the school's computer lab and used valuable class time to figure it all out. I think he has a few options here. He could have his 7th graders use their own personal email addresses to set up basic, non-EDU Prezi accounts. However, with that he has little control over what the kids are creating and sharing and there is a limit to how many Prezis can be created. This option means that students could be making inappropriate Prezis and as long as it's not being done at school, there isn't much he can do about it. So, this option is really a no-go, in my opinion.
Another option he has is to talk with the district technology department to find out if there is a way around this - perhaps the teacher or an administrator could log in to each student's email and activate the Prezi accounts.
A third option is to give his class access to his own Prezi Edu account and allow them to create Prezis under his name. This would allow for all Prezis to be created in one place - and would give Mr. Lopez greater control over what is being created and who it's being shared with.
Ultimately, if Prezis are going to become a common way to create presentations, then the district's technology department needs to look at the features and determine a policy for all district staff and their classes to follow.
4.  Share any real-life incidents or personal connections related to the scenario.
Last year, I gave a research project assignment and encouraged students to find new ways to share what they learned - beyond Powerpoint and trifold boards. One or two of my students created Prezis. Then, at the TIES Conference in December, I learned even more about Prezis and set up my own EDU account. I came upon situation similar to Mr. Lopez's when I required my students to create Prezis for a book report assignment. At first, the ones who didn't already have a Prezi account used their personal or parents' emails. But either the "sharing" feature didn't always work well or the limit on Prezis in a basic account prevented some students from being able to do the assignment. I knew the kids had school email addresses (as I had seen this on their Moodle accounts) but I didn't know anything about them being able to access them - I simply assumed they got to use them when they got to middle or high school and that didn't help me as their 5th grade teacher. So, I changed my password to something simple and easy to remember and gave my class my login information. We talked about the importance to opening, editing, and saving Prezis that they created themselves and they had to promise (very informally) not to play with, change, or delete anyone else's work. Honestly, it worked out GREAT! All the Prezis were in one location for me to view and grade, it was simple for the kids to log in and they didn't need to worry about "sharing" it with me or emailing me the link, parents were happy because the kids weren't needing to use their email accounts or create their own email accounts (many of which require kids to be 13). I never had an issue with anyone doing anything to anyone else's Prezi. I have heard that students CAN have access to their email accounts in elementary school - but I haven't contacted anyone to hear the final word on that. Anyone?