Students at Lower Merion School District in Pennsylvania sure do. Students working on their school issued laptops noticed that the built in camera would sometimes turn on, seemingly on it’s own. As a result of a student lawsuit, the district admitted that they had installed theft-tracking software into student laptops that allowed administrators to activate webcams and automatically snapped photos of kids in school and at home. While the school district insists that spying on students through their laptops was never sanctioned or approved by any administrators, 56,000 images, including shots of students and the images on their computers, were collected over a two year period without students’ knowledge or consent. According to news reports, many of these images were taken inside students’ home.

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of Pennsylvania has a Students’ Rights Manual available on their website, which does a good job of explaining basic civil rights law, but it does not yet appear to address issues related to new technologies. While the Pennsylvania case is extreme, I’m sure many educators face issues related to the breaches of student privacy newly possible with advancing technology.

For example, many teachers post student grades on the web making them readily available to parents. At what point does this practice impinge on the student’s privilege to control how their parents receive information on their scholastic achievements?

We spend a great deal of time discussing the benefits of new technology in the classroom. I am a loud and enthusiastic advocate of free and open communication practices, but in the rush to take advantage of the latest and greatest tech tools we must not ignore the legal and ethical responsibilities that come along with integrating technology in education.

What kind of ethical questions have you faced in the process of bringing new technology into the classroom?

I recently had a new front and storm door installed. The old front door was drafty, had far too many holes in it from years of holiday decoration, changes in locks, and the occasional inadvertent collision with furniture, appliances, and large dogs (but that’s another story entirely). The only hole my front door did not have was one through which I could look out and see who was outside. And, the storm door! That ragged, old storm door offered no insulation, had no secure lock of its own and had no spring attached (when opened it stayed open). I could live with the doors as they were but I wanted to find better options; I was faced with a series of choices.

The most secure option I had was to remove the doors entirely and seal up the opening to form a solid wall — this would have provided the very best security since no one could come in or out. However, for reasons I hope are obvious this solution was not practical. Perhaps the easiest and least secure option I had was to remove the old doors and leave the opening – this would certainly provide the easiest access, but for equally obvious reasons this was no more practical than my solid-wall solution.

I decided to have new interior and storm doors installed; ones that were attractive (after all, I want people to feel my home is inviting) and reasonably secure. I went with an interior door that has a glass centerpiece through which I can look out, and a storm door made of safety glass, with a lock that engages a deadbolt. From a security standpoint, using doors is a compromise solution: it’s not as safe as walling up the opening entirely, nor is it as accessible as having an opening without doors.

Doors are a compromise between an open walkway and a wall; they allow and prevent people entering and exiting. School security decisions are similarly about deciding which “doors” to build when establishing a safe and productive school computing environment. To do this, educators, administrators, and IT staff need to engage in constructive dialogue and critical conversations around security measures and the effects these measures have on integrating technology into teaching and learning.

For example, how can teachers make effective use of copyrighted materials for instruction without committing copyright infringement? The “wall” approach would be to avoid using any and all copyrighted materials: the “open passageway” approach would be to use anything that strikes a teacher’s fancy without regard for copyright. We need to develop a “door” for using copyrighted materials. To work toward a solution you need to answer a number of questions: What policies, rules and laws exist that affect the use of copyrighted materials? Who decides your school’s policy? What is acceptable use? What is not acceptable use? What rules and procedures can you develop for yourself or your schools that will help everyone make good use of copyrighted materials? It’s important to remember that we’re talking about building doors, not walls and not completely open passageways. An all-access solution is not the best for the majority of settings, nor is a solid-wall solution.

How does your school work through security issues like this? Are all stakeholders involved? How do you select the best “door?”

Arik describes himself as a “friendly web-geek and entrepreneur.” His Twitter profile indicates he’s from Israel. That information by itself doesn’t really help answer the security concern at hand, however.

A Technorati search for the website in question currently yields 14 blog results, and none of them appear to be crying “foul” over the site. Perhaps it can be trusted? I’m not sure.

Back in September of 2007, a rash of spam was unleashed when lots of folks clicked email links and provided their email credentials to the site Quechup. The website sent automated emails out to all of the contacts in a person’s webmail account IMMEDIATELY after login credentials were entered, WITHOUT asking permission. That Quechup situation was a heads-up indicating how important it can be to safeguard your login credentials for different websites, and be VERY careful whenever another site asks you to enter them or grant its application ACCESS to your account. Quite often, the fine print is too fine for most people to read so they don’t do it. The results can be dangerous.

Facebook announced last month it has plans to offer “verified applications” which ostensibly would be better security risks for people to use and try. Rogue Facebook applications received a bit of press this past spring.

Is there any harm in following what Doug Symington calls “herd behavior” and changing your Twitter icon green? No. Is there a potential harm if you change your icon color using the web link from helpiranelection.com? I’m not sure. To stay on the safe site, I’m not clicking it and authorizing access to my Twitter account to find out.

Technorati Tags:
twitter, iran, @helpiranelection, #iranelection