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Jonathan Tepper
More than ever, those who work in the educational system
need to understand the impact of technology on education.
Increasingly over the years, media has brought extra attention to
online privacy and security, particularly with respect to issues
of cyberbullying and the risks it brings to our children. As
technology is becoming more sophisticated, so are the types of
cyberbullying, such as online flaming, harassment, denigration,
impersonation, outing, and trickery (Bissonette, 2009). Educators
must be aware of these problems and increase precautions to
protect themselves and their students, so that they can maintain
a safe learning environment. Obviously with the increasingly
complex issues related to use of technology, educators require
training and increased support to better ensure student and
personal safety, especially since the Supreme Court of Canada has
ruled that teachers and principals must care for students with
whom they interact outside of the classroom (Zucker & Flynn,
2009, p. 361). Teachers and principals must use technology
responsibly when interacting with students beyond the classroom.
As teachers begin to incorporate more sophisticated
technology such as social networking tools into their pedagogy,
they will realize that student interaction and communication will
continue to happen anywhere, anyplace, and at anytime. Although
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it is exciting that technology can transform learning
opportunities, educators must be cognizant that they are
responsible for students’ well being when engaging them with
these tools. Specifically, teachers who plan to use social
networking in their program should be aware that these tools are
part of the child’s “lifeworld”, a term meaning a person’s
private life online (The New London Group, 1996, p. 65).
Unlike the traditional paradigm where learning takes place
with a definable space and time in a classroom or on a school
excursion, such as a field trip to a city’s museum, social
networking tools do not turn “off” after school or easily limit
boundaries between the public and private lives of students or
the teacher. Social networking tools, such as Facebook, Bebo,
hi5, Windows Live Spaces, Ning, Habbo, Diigo, and Second Life
offer an immersive environment in which students can share,
collaborate, and synthesize ideas with others. The advantage of
these tools is they are part of the students’ social identities,
and can be used as authentic means of communication to share
ideas, media, and resources between family members and peers.
Examining these benefits, educators see an opportunity to
leverage these technologies by incorporating them into
pedagogical strategies. But is this “opportunity” worth it? What
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are the privacy issues, management controls, and the
accountability issues related to using these tools for education?
For instance, the most immediate concern one should consider is
the occurrence of bullying online, because it is a growing
reality that is welldocumented by the media, demonstrating the
risks of using social networking tools. “While the Internet has
greatly facilitated communication and access to information, this
medium allows covert verbal bullying to thrive” (Shariff, 2004,
p. 225).
Some recently documented examples of cyberbullying
demonstrate its subversive nature and show that resources and
training need to be in place to give the teacher the necessary
skills to teach with online technologies. The Missouri MySpace
suicide case is a recent example showing the dangers of social
networking and is arguably the most infamous case of cyber
bullying to date. In this case a young girl, Megan Meir,
committed suicide over a MySpace fictional boyfriend, who, in
reality, was a disgruntled classmate’s mother, whose daughter had
had a falling out in her friendship with Megan. Although the
pursuant will most likely appeal for stronger convictions, the
rival’s mother, Lori Drew, was found guilty for hacking and
impersonation under the U.S. computer crimes statute (CNN, 2009).
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Another case involved a boy named David Knight who had a
website dedicated to him which contained hateful comments to him
and his family, by classmates. This website intimidated David at
school, affecting his work; he was unable to ignore it even from
home, as it was openly accessible on the Internet. It took his
family seven months to have the website provider take it offline
(CBC News, 2005).
In 2001, a Canadian grade 11 student received an anonymous
email at home containing threats. Not knowing how to protect
herself, she was hysterical and frightened at home and at school.
The cyber stalker, called “Raveger”, turned out to be classmates
that confessed their inappropriate actions (Shariff, 2004, p.
225).
The significance of these examples is that cyberbullying
affects the learning community, even though the acts did not
originate within the school. Another important observation in
these examples is that the school, either directly or indirectly,
was a common link between the victim and the bully.
The severity of cyber bullying and its impact on education
cannot be ignored. Research states cyberbullying has increased
from 14% to 34% between 2002 (Shariff, 2004, p. 224) and 2008
(Zucker & Flynn, 2009, p. 364). This might be associated with
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media placing cyberbullying in the spotlight, turning it into a
more overt phenomenon, but the fact remains, as more cyber
bullying incidents increase, so will the lawsuits related to
cyberbullying (Bissonette, 2009, p. 7). Shariff (2004)
discovered that the longer that cyberbullying continues, the
more that support for the bully increases, as does the intensity
of the abuse (p. 224). As this trend increases, schools must be
vigilant and be ready to intervene as soon as possible when
cyberbullying happens.
Examining Ontario law and the rulings set by the Canadian
Supreme Court, how should teachers be prepared for using online
communication in their program? In February 2008, Provincial
legislation in Ontario passed Bill 212, which fundamentally
changed the Safe Schools Act of June 2000 that was established to
address issues with zero tolerance policies (Ontario Human Rights
Commission, 2009). The Safe Schools Act had been “criticized for
its strict approach to disciplining students with suspensions and
expulsions”(CBC News.ca, 2009). While Bill 212 addresses these
“zero tolerance” issues, it has also introduced new laws that
allow school authorities to tackle circumstances that will
negatively impact the school’s climate (Zucker & Flynn, 2009, p.
365; Ontario Government, 2009). Bullying is also specifically
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identified in Bill 212.
Bill 212 gives principals the authority to investigate and
suspend students who negatively impact their schools’ safety.
Bullying is defined in the Ministry’s Policy/Program Memorandum
no. 144 as “repeated, persistent, and aggressive behaviour
directed at an individual or individuals that is intended to
cause (or should be known to cause) fear and distress and/or harm
to another person’s body, feelings, selfesteem, or reputation”
(Ontario Ministry of Education, 2007). The definition also
includes cyberbullying – a form of bullying through the use of
technology (Ontario Ministry of Education, 2007). Therefore, Bill
212 provides an opportunity to proactively catch and potentially
stop the immergence of systemic nature of bullying.
Since Bill 212 provides administrators the means with which
to protect the school’s climate, it offers teachers support for
using social networking tools, since the principal, by proxy, can
provide disciplinary support. Social networking tools by design
develop communities to share information; however, these tools
are also described as “viral” in nature because the connections
people make online spread and change quickly. Another factor is
that these tools are online and offer open access anytime and
anywhere. These influences make social networking difficult to
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manage because the outcomes and intent of the tool can be used
beyond the scope of the planned lesson.
The idea of using social networking in education is a fairly
recent concept (Tosh & Werdmuller, 2004), but the ability to
successfully implement it in education is usually hindered by a
lack of resources or knowledge of how to manage the tool properly
(Willard, 2006). Research does suggest that using communication
tools that are part of the students’ medium of communication
offers an authentic means of learning to the student (Lankshear &
Knobel, 2003; The New London Group, 1996; Hull & Schultz, 2002).
Bill 212 certainly gives the principal the ability to supply
consequences for inappropriate online behaviour but it is up to
the principal in partnership with the teacher to determine how
they are going to monitor the use of these tools in an
educational context. The challenge for the educator is the
ability to document the inappropriate behaviour. Because the
media is electronic, the ability to access hosted content on
social networking sites is usually controlled by the end user
(i.e., the student), so the principal or teacher must resort to
screen capture tools, or snap shot evidence, to document any
online, inappropriate behaviour. It is important that educators
track and, if possible, document online activity, because they
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are accountable for the safety of their students while they are
under their care.
In 2008, a principal in the Ontario Durham Catholic District
School board learned that a student was making death threats and
impersonating others through the use of Facebook. Even though the
school initiated the investigation, evidence was only found
through the help of a computer expert detective and the
cooperation of Facebook (R.T v. Durham Catholic District School
Board (EA s.311.7), 2008).
“In a unanimous decision, the Child and Family Services
Review Board emphatically found that the student’s threats
against another student through Facebook, although not
occurring at school or during a schoolrelated activity,
were nonetheless “very detrimental” to the climate of the
school under s. 310(1) of the Education Act” (Green, 2008).
As seen in this case, social networks, such as Facebook, are
sophisticated and difficult to monitor. Although the school did
not initiate Facebook as a learning tool in the classroom, the
case demonstrates how difficult it is to investigate social
networks hosted outside of the school. If educators do intend to
use social networking tools they should either consider seeking
resources that reside within the school or make sure that the
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hosted online tool provides the teacher with access to document
any inappropriate actions.
Although these additional precautions may be deemed as less
authentic, it would give the teacher and the principal additional
features in documenting detrimental online behaviour. In the
event that the educator does decide to use a social networking
tool hosted outside of the school’s network, the teacher should
determine in advance that the social networking tool maintains
controls or services to track inappropriate behaviour. In recent
related research, Hinduja and Patchin (2007) jointly concluded
that:
“…Schools hold such a prominent place in the lives of
schoolaged children, it is likely that the school will
serve as a front line institution as interpersonal conflict
moves from virtual world to the real world” (p. 112).
As social networking technology continues to penetrate the
sphere of education, the duties of individual teachers will
continue to blur between inschool and outofschool activities
(Zucker & Flynn, 2009, p. 364). Online privacy, or rather the
lack thereof, is another factor why educators should be concerned
about the accountability of providing a safe environment beyond
the classroom. Many of the social networking services offer
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varying degrees of privacy settings, but these controls are
commonly user directed and limited in generalizing essential
differences between users. For example, Facebook, which is the
most popular social networking tool, has an estimated total of
4.6 million users in Ontario, but only offers the ability to
associate oneself as a “friend”, rather than distinguishing
connections between family, friends, teachers, coworkers,
strangers, and so forth.
The Canadian Internet Policy and Public Interest Clinic
recently filed a complaint with the Canadian Privacy
Commissionaire regarding Facebook’s breach of Canadian privacy in
twelve areas, which included age of consent, initial low default
security settings, third party access to personal data, account
deactivation, personal information of nonusers, deception, and
uses of personal information (Denham, 2009). These concerns are
not isolated to Canadian Laws and will be further shaping work
policies in the near future. For instance,
“Several Mississippi schools concerned about communications
between students and teachers crossing the line between
professional and personal have enacted or are considering
policies that prohibit online communication on social
networking sites or via text messaging between students and
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teachers” (Bissonette, 2009).
The trend of prohibiting the use of social networking tools
will likely continue since the paradigm of web communication has
shifted from a single entity broadcasting information to multiple
users authoring information online. School boards that do allow
the use of social networking will need to educate and train their
teachers on the potential liability and proper facilitation of
using these tools for learning. A graduate student, Bernadette
Rego (2009), from the University of British Columbia, prepared a
document called “A teacher’s guide to Facebook” to help teachers
understand how to use Facebook and discuss the potential
consequences and advantages of the online environment. It
provides stepbystep instructions regarding student and teacher
privacy as well as tips on creating an online professional image,
appropriate online communication boundaries, and the risks of
using Facebook. Although Bernadette Rego’s article provides a
good framework for reducing the risk of inappropriate behaviour
using Facebook, it might not be enough to outweigh the gains for
utilizing this type of learning.
Once initiated for learning, the teacher cannot simply turn
Facebook’s connections on and off or “lock the door” at the end
of the day. Teachers who use social networking in their classroom
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and do not facilitate a safe environment or sufficiently monitor
student behaviour may be potentially liable for allowing cyber
bullying. Additionally, tools like Facebook are hosted outside
of the school network. Therefore even with Bill 212, principals
may find it difficult to diligently investigate incidents that
could negatively affect the integrity of the school’s culture.
The Canadian Privacy Commissionaire’s investigation (Denham,
2009) into Facebook also reveals that the environment provides
additional challenges for the online educator (and likely the
average user).
Although social networking enhances the learning experience,
educators should seek other solutions that provide better
controls for community building and learning. School Boards
should consider investing in hosting their own social networking
tools that contain the necessary controls to investigate
inappropriate behaviour. A good example of a social networking
tool is ELGG (http://elgg.org), an open source product that is
designed to track and host users within a learning community.
ELGG can be used by itself or integrated into an existing
learning management system, such as Moodle (http://moodle.org).
Another viable solution is to open a oneway gateway that
allows the teacher to push content to users’ personal social
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networks but leave the interaction to school hosted resources
such as email, discussion boards, and “read only” websites. The
advantage of this solution is that a school or school board does
not have to support additional resources or constantly monitor
the social network space, since it was not implemented or
directly facilitated by the teacher. Many Learning Management
Systems provide this type of service, for example, Blackboard
(http://www.blackboard.com), Moodle (http://moodle.org),
Sharepoint (http://sharepoint.microsoft.com/), and most recently
Udutu (http:// UdutuTeach.com). These systems offer the ability
to push content from their system to Facebook.
Whatever the solution, with careful implementation,
educators can transcend the walls of the classroom by providing
students the ability to learn in their preferred medium without
losing the facility of classroom management. This way the
teacher can focus on what matters most: the desire to teach
children the value of respect and the love of learning either
“offline” or online.
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