Activity 5: Legal and ethical contexts in my practice

Activity 5: Legal and ethical contexts in my practice.

An ethical dilemma for me…

In these days of widespread use of technology and social media, both in school and out, one of the situations I dread is that of coming across video or photos of me (that I did not know were being taken) ‘out there’ in the digital stratosphere. While this has already happened indirectly, in that a student took a video of his experiment in my science class and my voice could be heard in the background, it is a salutary reminder that this is an ever present reality for teachers today. The danger, of course, is that video of any teacher taken without their knowledge or consent in the course of their work has the possibility of being taken out of context. Imagine if I had been taking a sex education class or discussing human reproductive systems and these were taken out of context, misconstrued and then wound up on social media!

In the event mentioned above, this prompted me to talk to my classes and explain that they were not to take photos or video of me without my knowledge and consent. In reality, this will be very difficult to police but it did create some discussion around appropriate use of digital technology and social media. And it’s highly likely that this has already happened – I just don’t know about it.

The other side of this coin is that I must reciprocate. A number of my students have questioned what I do with the photos or recordings I take of them and this is a fair question. I assure them that they are for assessment purposes or as part of my appraisal documents. The only other place I might post them (with permission!) is in Google Classroom so they are only visible to that class. I do not post these images anywhere on line and certainly wouldn’t without appropriate permission.

I do use social media and also am Facebook friends with some students and parents. However, I am very careful to ensure that where students are involved it is in a closed group situation, such as the Y13 Whanau house group as I am staff head of a house and need to be able to communicate quickly and easily with house leaders and other Y13s when we are organizing for inter-house competitions, etc. The other closed groups I am part of on Facebook that involve students (and some parents) are the college Snowsports team (I am the manager) and the Amazon trip page from when I accompanied a school trip to South America a few year ago. In my experience, because there is at least one teacher on these pages, students tend to use them in an appropriate manner!

The position of a teacher is a trusted one in society – after all, we are responsible for educating the youth of our nation. We need to ensure we respect this position, “recognise the influence we have on learners” (Education Council, 2017) and act in accordance with it. Part of the dilemma comes with being unaware of when or if we are being filmed by students and exactly where those images are going to end up. The other part is our own online presence through social media. We have a duty of care to our students which includes being careful about what we ‘put out there’ in any format. Whether we like it or not, this job comes with some responsibilities that are 24/7 – and wise use of social media is one of them.

While at my school the policy is that staff should not communicate with students via social media, this can become blurred as clearly, from what I have previously said, I do. In a school that uses G Suite (Google Apps for education), the opportunity for students and parents to be constantly in contact with us is huge. These apps include social media apps. As always, it’s about acting in a professional manner and taking care with whom and how it is done, including managing app settings appropriately!

References

New Zealand Education Council, 2017. Retrieved from https://educationcouncil.org.nz/content/our-code-our-standards