Working legally, safely and ethically online

As an educator who will be encouraging students to embrace technology there are a number of issues I will need to be aware of.  These include:-

• Copyright regulations
• Exposure to inappropriate material
• Safety of our children (stranger danger, cyber-bullying)
• Privacy

Common sense applies to a few of these issues, particularly Copyright and Privacy.  Generally if it is another person's work it needs to be referenced. The various legislation's and policies in place will guide me in this area. (Connectivism Theory really has merit - I don't know what the policies are but I know where to go to get it!). When using blogs and wiki's in a classroom context it will be important to educate the children on these also.

The Official Guide to Copyright Issues for Australian Schools and TAFE (2008) refers to 'fair dealing'. It states:-
"Students rely on fair dealing to copy and communicate third party material (other people’s work).  For fair dealing to apply, the use must be ‘fair’ and for the purpose of:

• research or study for class (eg copying an image off the internet to include in a homework exercise  or using music from a CD in a podcast or vodcast for a school assignment)
• criticism or review (eg reviewing a book, CD or film for homework)
• reporting the news (eg writing an article for the school newsletter on a current news item) 
• parody or satire (eg writing a humorous or satirical imitation of a serious newspaper article or advertisement for a class exercise)

Students copying and communicating material under ‘fair dealing’ need to attribute the source material, the copyright owner and author of the work (if different)."

Parents will also need to be educated on the issues of inappropriate websites and the safety of our children. Virus software that have built in child monitoring (some popular versions are Net Nanny and  Norton Online Safety Minder) can be an excellent purchase for the home computer.  Schools generally have a similar software installed to block access to inappropriate sites.

These ethical, legal and safe issues must be continually assessed and considered by teachers who embrace Web 2.0 technologies.