Blog Reflection Week Thirteen (Chapters Eleven and Twelve)

1. What are the legal, social, and ethical issues arising in the Digital Age? Summarize each.

With the rise of the Digital Age, various legal, social, and ethical problems have become an increasing concern. These are problems that cannot be covered up or ignored, especially for educators who have embraced the idea of using technology as an instructional strategy to supplement their curriculum. Those teachers (and even teachers who have not embraced this idea) must pay careful attention to all the issues that have arisen.

Legal problems include issues such as copyright and fair use laws, privacy, acceptable use, and software piracy. Many resources on the Internet are protected by copyright laws, but fair use guidelines allow teachers to use some copyrighted materials in face-to-face instruction. Therefore, it is important that a teacher is current with the legislation on such issues. Another very important legal issue is privacy. Teachers must respect a child’s right to privacy and have parental or guardian permission before exposing any personal work or information on the Internet. A third legal issue is acceptable use, meaning that it is the teacher’s responsibility to oversee the students’ activity on the computer to ensure that its use is both appropriate and safe. Filtering software supports the teacher and administration by monitoring acceptable use. A fourth legal issue is software piracy which refers to the illegal copying and distribution of software that was purchased for a single machine. In essence, software piracy is stealing and should not become a practice of a school or teacher.

The Digital Age has also given rise to social issues, also referred to as the digital divide. The digital divide, as explained in the text, is the gap between the technology “haves” and “have-nots.” This gap occurs across socioeconomic lines in which research shows that poorer households have limited access to technology information whereas higher earning households have greater access, thus giving these families an “upper hand” in the competitive Digital Age. The digital divide has also been related to gender, ethnic, and educational lines. Whatever the reason, the digital divide affects technology literacy in education. Thus it is important for educators to be aware of the gap and do what they can to bridge the gap for their students.

Furthermore, the Digital Age has given rise to ethical issues, such as freedom of speech. Not all information on the Internet is grounded in facts, rather much of the information is objectionable and opinionated. Other ethical issues include privacy and academic dishonesty.

These issues, though not all were birthed from the Digital Age, have definitely become more of a concern during the Digital Age. Therefore it is important that teachers and administrators are aware of these concerns and the resources available to them.