I’d like to spend some time thinking about the ethical considerations of asking students to use various online resources as part of the coursework. By ethics, I mean two things:
1. Access– what hardware, software, and sites can we reasonably expect students to have and/or use? (Are we leaving out students who don’t have as many resources?)
2. Creating an online persona (or adding to an existing persona)- should we be troubled by the ways in which services– for example, GoogleDocs– collect data in exchange for the free use of their services? When I require students to sign on to these services, I want to make sure I’m not asking them to sign on to be tracked across all their web activity.
I’m eager to learn more about the best tools and practices that have been developed.
About meagan.rodgers
My main focus is on the teaching of writing. I'm a composition/rhetoric specialist with a strong interest in adopting technology in responsible ways. I'm always guided in my decision-making by the point Cindy Selfe made about the digital divide-- I won't roll out new tech in the classroom if I'm not convinced that all students can easily access and use that technology.
My research agenda is driven by my desire to make conversations about race in English classrooms more effective. I am motivated by the desire to continually improve my pedagogy. My approach to this research is heavily sociological.
I think Firefly is the best thing that I've ever seen on tv. (I've shown excerpts of "Out of Gas" in creative nonfiction classes-- does that count as technology in the classroom?)
