The issue of safety and security is many times taken from the perspective of protecting students from online predators and adult web sites and this is how it should be but there is another perspective in terms of security from the position of the organization or school administration from itself and staff.
A recent NY Times article http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/15/education/15plans.html brings up the issue of teachers selling their lesson plans online for their own gain and in some cases to purchase classroom material. The issue is a moral question but also a security issue that schools and organizations have to come to a decision on. "Can a teacher sell the material used in the school for their own financial gain"? It also has to be decided if using the web access and technology to create and ultimately sell the lesson plans is a security violation of the Internet use policy.
It seems this is where collaboration and the concept of "open" symbiotic development hits the entrepreneur spirit and the free market concept. The web blog site Edutopia is discussing this http://www.edutopia.org/poll-selling-lesson-plans-online?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+EdutopiaNewContent+%28Edutopia%29&utm_content=Google+Reader issue and some of the points brought up is the idea that teachers should own their work and should then be allowed to do what they want to do with it. The problem with this argument is that it has been a legal tenant that work created during work time is owned by the organization (does this apply to a school?). So following this, if teachers did projects on their own time they can sell them through their home computers at will. the moral issue their is for those buying them, is that an accepted method, why not, isn't it like buying a book as a reference.
So the line between collaboration and sharing ways to educate can become blurred when profit comes into the picture, but should it?
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Jay, interesting "turn" on the safety and security discussion! What if a teacher is getting $ for blogging about a certain piece of software/web2.0 tool that they use to teach with....and they do the blogging during the school day?
ReplyDeleteI can't believe that people are really buying lesson plans online...there is so much out there that is Creative Commons is there really a need?
Blogging for profit during the work day brings up the gray area of acceptable behavior. Using the schools web access for personal profit is a violation of the FCC guidelines for any "E" Rate access a school might have. There is also a discussion that needs to be had with blogging in any form during the school or work time, isn't that inappropriate use of "time", or does it advanced the academic goals or is it the advancement of a personal goal, i.e. recognition or prestige? These ethical debates should be conducted so staff understand and clarify the boundaries that may already exist and establish those boundaries that their particular group, school or organization may have for their own particular standard.
ReplyDeleteI think this is very interesting. My stance on it is that teachers shouldn't sell their material. I have been teaching for 6 years and it has always been a profession of professional courtesy and the idea of borrowing materials from one another. Throughout my college training and even as a teacher "they" always say "Don't reinvent the wheel". Teachers should continue to borrow ideas from one another when it comes to lesson plans and instruction even if they come up with the idea completly on their own.
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