Reflection+on+Technology+Facilitator+&+Leader+Standard+6

Reflection on Technology Facilitator/Leader Standard #6
Social, Ethical, Legal, and Human Issues Standard 6: Understanding the social, ethical, legal, and human issues surrounding the use of technology in PK-12 schools. As a facilitator, I will be responsible for assisting teachers in understanding the rules, policies, and procedures for safe, ethical use of technology in the classroom, help teachers promote safe use of technology resources and help the school implement strategies for equitable access to technology resources for all students. I will need to keep current on new laws, policies and guidelines passed by the state and federal agencies. I know many of the procedures and policies in place for our school because I have helped to create most of these rules and help monitor them. I receive a newsletter from TEA each year during the spring explaining new laws and policies. This gives me time to help the administration design new policies for when school starts in the fall. Copyright issues are one area that is a struggle for many of us. When one of the students wants to put an image in a project being done for one of their classes, doing an image search online is easy and it is difficult to make the students understand that they cannot just grab any picture out there and use it. I purchased a set of twenty cd’s for each computer lab to use that contained nineteen cds of clipart, and photos and one of sound effects and sound clips. The students still want to just copy an image from the Internet because it is so easy. Most educators do not fully comprehend copyright law and, therefore, are not able to model and teach basic principles to students (Williamson & Redish, 2009, p. 131). Some teachers want to copy a program to take home and use on their home computer and some of the licenses we have for software include faculty use at home but most do not. We have even had some graduates come during their first semester of college to ask if they can make a copy of the software they had used at our school. Other than teaching about copyright laws in a computer literacy course for middle school students we have not had any training for the students or teachers about copyright laws and copyright infringement. I think I have not done a good job of teaching, or making sure it was taught, legal and ethical practices to our faculty and students. Two of the performance indicators for standard six involve diversity. As a facilitator I need to assist teachers in applying appropriate resources to enable diverse learners and help them apply resources to address cultural and language differences. Nuri-Robins, Lindsey, Terrell, and Lindsey (2007) state, diverse groups of students cannot be taught well and expected to achieve if educators do not understand and respond to the dynamics of culture in their school environment(p. 18). I was not aware of this issue until I started taking the courses for this class. In the past our district has had some students with special needs. We have made purchases and then helped teachers and students learn how to use the resources purchased. Using technology resources that affirm diversity and enabling learners with diverse backgrounds has not been an issue for our district. Our faculty and students are very homogenous, 96% of the students are white, 100% of the teachers are white. I cannot remember ever doing anything to promote cultural differences. Internet safety is an issue that we address daily with the students and teachers. The students are blocked from using social networks at school but starting at the middle school level we have lessons on Internet safety. Some of the teachers check on the students’ social network sites and then talk about it the next day. Schools need to educate students about the risks of online self-disclosure, both when using school computers and the school Internet system and when accessing the Internet off campus (Bissonette,2009, p.47). One day about 3 years ago a man came to the school, checked in at the office, and then was brought to my room because I have a copy of every yearbook that has ever been published at our school. He was looking for a woman he had been talking to online. He had a picture and a name but we had no picture in any yearbook with that name. He had driven here from Ohio to meet her. That experience was an eye-opener for some of the students who were in my class at the time. It made the lessons a bit more understandable for them and me.

Bissonette, A.M. (2009). //Cyber law; Maximizing safety and minimizing risk in classrooms.// Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin Press. Nuri-Robins, K., Lindsey, D.B., Terrell, R.D., & Lindsey, R.B. (2007). Cultural proficiency: Tools for secondary school administrators. //Principal Leadership,8// (1), 16-22. Williamson, J., & Redish, T. (2009). //ISTE’s technology facilitation and leadership standards; What every K-12 leader should know and be able to do.// Eugene, OR: International Society for Technology in Education.