PLO 5 -- Ethical Practices of Technology Usage



Ethical Practices of Technology Usage

The following paper is going to discuss and demonstrate my knowledge of Program Learning Outcome 5, “exemplify ethical practices of technology usage.”  It is going to have a prior MATLT course activity and a redesign of the chosen activity.  I will also be discussion what principles and theories that were chose and why.  Lastly, the paper will discuss any challenges experienced during the redesign process and how they were overcome.
When it comes to the privacy and ethical issues they will always be a concern in any public setting.  It is up to those such as the students and instructors to be diligent to continuously monitor those whom are using technology to make sure that they are adhering to the policies and procedures that are in place to protect them.  When it comes to introducing technology into the educational setting there have been several issues that have been introduced.  Some of those issues are different levels of knowledge of the technology, people coming from different socioeconomic backgrounds, as well as issues surrounding plagiarism and the ability to steal someone’s identity.
When looking at the article about ethics in instructional technology by Lin (2007), he interviewed professional technologists regarding ethical issues when it comes to instructional technology.  One of the participants that he interviewed discussed the issue that he saw when it comes to learner’s privacy and how easy it was for their information to be misused.  The participant went on to state that technology gives the learners and people in general capabilities that once were not available and that in turn opened the door for unethical behaviors that may have not otherwise been considered.

Original Lesson
For this part of the assignment I chose to use the week 4 assignment from EDU/652.
Creating and Implementing Connect-Type Learning Activities. Connect-type
activities exist to connect learning to an individual’s real-life experiences. Connect
-type activities join what a learner is learning to what he or she already knows. There are a variety of connect -type activities which range from ponder activities,
to storytelling, to job aide, research activities, and original work.

Select a topic of interest to you (or your current class or company), conduct a needs assessment, and create a connect -type activity. Your activity should provide 5 to 10 minutes of instruction. You can implement your activity using any of the following learning technologies:

·         Word or PDF document
·         PowerPoint presentation
·         Blog (submit the Web address of your blog)
·         Video (post your video on YouTube and submit the URL)
·         Podcast (submit the Web address of your podcast)

To perform your needs assessment, address the following:
·         What do you know?
·         What do you want to know?
·         What are you trying to measure, determine, or define?
·         How will you collect and record information?
·         How will you report the information you collect?
·         Are all interested groups included in planning and conducting the needs assessment?
I chose this lesson as it was one that we had to create a learning activity that could be linked to a real-life experience.  I chose to design scavenger hunt to help my children learn the state capitals along with the state tree and bird.  I have learned throughout my educational career as well as theirs that it is very important to understand what the learner already knows about the topic, what they need to know about the topic, and how I will collect and record the information from the lesson.
Redesign
The students will be doing a scavenger hunt throughout their classroom to find information related to the states capitals, birds, trees, and flowers.  There will be pictures and names scattered throughout the room and the students have to take the name to the correct picture.  All students will be broken into smaller groups of 2-4 students each.  Everyone will be graded based on their participation and ability to correctly name the states capitals, birds, trees, and flowers.
The theory that I feel best fits this lesson is that of objectivism/behaviorism.  I feel that this theory fits best as the lesson is one that will take a period of time to complete, therefore the students will be learning the information over a period of time.  I will also be able to monitor their learning process and watch how they are behaving throughout the lesson.  The challenges that I faced in the redesign were to make sure that all photos that were used were correctly obtained.
I also had to make sure that none of the information that was used in the lesson was plagiarized as well.  This is an ethical concern that is always on the back of my mind as I have personally seen this happen to many different people.  I also had to make sure when deciding what pictures, I was going to use that I first asked permission form the person that held the copyright to the picture. 
When it comes to the use of the internet and different types of technology there are always going to be ethical concerns.  We as instructors must make sure that we are able to balance the safety of the learners as well as make sure that we are offering the learner the best possible education possible. 

































Reference

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