There are so many ethical issues around the use of technology in teaching that it is hard to pick one as the most important. Personally, my first consideration would be to student privacy. Does the tool require students to sign up for an account that violates FOIPPA rules? Will their personally identifying information be stored on a US server? These are initial questions that would lead to my rejecting requiring students to use many social media platforms, including Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. Fortunately, at TRU we have open source, locally hosted substitutes for many of these platforms. Students may choose to use these social media platforms on their own (and we should be doing a better job of educating them about the risks) but it is a different thing altogether to require it as part of a class. Often these platforms become so ubiquitous that instructors don’t question their use so we also need to make sure instructors understand the risks they are asking of their students. Now, I’m not saying I don’t use Facebook, Instagram or Twitter but that is my choice.
And there it is – tied up in this ethical question is the importance of maintaining student choice. If you assign a group project, that group may make the choice to collaborate via a Google doc rather than your institutions hosted solution but that is their choice. We can offer them a Mattermost channel for chatting and they may choose to communicate through Messenger or Instagram chat but again that is their choice.
This is why I struggle so with the move to virtually proctored exams. Initially, students were to have a choice but the pandemic made face to face exams in examination centres impossible so all students were then forced to experience online proctoring. This is an intrusive practice that in essence brings the proctor into the student’s private living space. Much of the humanity of the experience is lost. Students are afraid to look up, afraid to ask to use the washroom. My daughter was so concerned about the experience that she cleared her desk of all her personal effects and left her phone on another floor. Ironically, she was then asked to go get the phone and show it so the proctor knew where it was!
Technology can certainly facilitate learning but it is also critical to remember our duty to protect our students in digital spaces and provide them with choice.