Keitai

A few weeks back Wesley Fryer pointed us to Doug Johnson’s “Teaching Students Right from Wrong in the Digital Age: A Technology Ethics Primer” (PDF.) I’ve read the PDF twice now and haven’t quite been able to figure out what to say about it. My immediate thought was that there was something sensationalistic about how the information was provided. The gist of the document seemed to be (my interpretation,) that the internet has created even more opportunities for students to ‘do the wrong thing.’ Add to this the somewhat out of date descriptions of hacking ("counter-culture beliefs",) the omission of information about legitimate alternative movements (Creative Commons, open-source)—and the overall view for the tech-novice educator or administrator might seem pretty grim.

Then today, I read a post (via Clarence Fisher) about a kids’ blogging competition in Singapore. Commenters noted the irony that a country such as Singapore (where you can’t chew gum would be so open while some schools in the US and Europe are beginning to block access to certain sites, not allowing students to blog, or closing down school web sites. I don’t find it that surprising.

I’ve spent a lot of time in Asia over the past few years and the main thing I’ve noticed is that—China’s firewall aside—there seems to be little fear of technology. Everyone uses it. Grandmothers play game-boy and swap SIM cards, young kids use Internet cafes (within approved hours,) and teenagers ‘hack’ together neat little uses for phones and graphics and plaster them all over their stuff. Bangkok recently opened a tech knowledge park at a popular mall and the large internet cafe (combined with a public library, kids’ activity space, tech lab, meeting rooms etc.) is constantly full of entire families surfing, reading, and experimenting with technology (Mac, Win, Linux) together.

And as a result, I’m guessing that conversations about ethics and technology are probably far less specific. It’s not so much, ‘why you shouldn’t cheat online’ but ‘why you shouldn’t cheat.’ Many of the examples given in Doug Johnson’s PDF are just as valid in a non-digital context (looking over somebody’s shoulder, peeking on the teacher’s desk, copying an assignment from a friend—technology has just made them a bit easier to do. Bundling these types of ethical behaviours (that kids have to learn regardless) with very important technology specific ones (ex. chat room safety) only makes technology seem needlessly scary and in need of control.

That said, we need more conversations about this stuff. I’m just not sure I’d have approached the conversation the way he did.