Ethics of Teaching with Technology

You cannot defeat an enemy you do not know

Ethics is such a significant part of our society and profession as educators. However, it is not discussed nearly enough, especially the ethical use of technology in education. I am trained as a chemist, so when a discussion of ethics of teaching with technology arose, I felt out of my depth. There are so many things to consider when implementing technology in your classroom: privacy, digital inequality, digital addiction, bias and discrimination, intellectual property rights and commercialization of data, none of which I had ever thought of before taking this course. 

Being introduced to the ethic of care was enlightening to me. A message from our discussion that really stood out to me was “the vulnerable people most impacted by a decision should have the loudest voice”. I have been actively working towards including more technology in my instructional practices without ever considering the impact it may have on my students, whom are the most vulnerable people impacted by its implementation. I never stopped to ask a student how they felt about using different technologies, submitting their work online, being required to access content through online interfaces etc. This message also made me think back to when I was a student and I thought nothing of having to submit work online or having to sign up for online accounts to complete projects, because I did not know better. This, in turn, sparked a thought in me about how we are educating our students and youth in online safety, copyright, creative commons, intellectual property, digital inequality etc. I think the most important ethical issue in teaching with technology is the lack of education to instructors and students about the safe and ethical use of technology. We cannot do better if we do not know better. 

We cannot tackle the large ethical issues of privacy, digital inequality, intellectual property and commercialization of data if we are not aware of them. We need to start conversations about these issues with fellow instructors and students so we can learn from each other and readily available resources while discussing their solutions. I think Rebecca Brown said it best, “You can’t fight a battle you don’t see or know exists. You cannot defeat an enemy when you don’t even know he is attacking you.”