Ethics

When you have finished your first project to the best of your ability, do these tasks.

1. Make a Word document to start with. Find a definition of ethics that make sense to you. Add the URL where you got it from.
2. Research The “Heinz dilemma” in Wikipedia and read the story. What do you think he should do and why? Write a paragraph explaining your decision and the reasons for it.
3. Find and read Kohlberg’s stages of moral development. Which stage do you think you are at and why? Write a paragraph about this.
4. Make a presentation using Power Point or Photostory that explains EITHER the Heinz story and the different levels of response OR a different ethical issue of your own choice. Be as creative as you can with graphics and sound and animation. Remember to acknowledge your sources of both information and images. You may use headphones but must return them tidily to the container at the end of the period.
5. If you complete all this work, have a look at career options at FutureInTech or Career Stories.

Legal and Ethical Issues

In any technology project you need to consider legal and ethical issues.
Legal issues are to do with the law.
Ethical issues are to do with right and wrong.
Ethical issues are things that people argue passionately about.
Actions can be legal but not ethical.
Actions can also be - defended as - ethical but not legal.
Sometimes what is legal is also open to argument.
An interesting recent example from the media is the case of the Waihopai Spy Base trial, where the peace protestors claimed that what they did was to prevent suffering and was therefore not illegal.

You MUST include legal and ethical issues somewhere in your project - either your key factors or your codes of practice would be sensible. And you will need to talk about these issue again in yuor evaluation.

Codes of Practice

Some points to consider here:

• Check last year's post explaining what a code of practice is.
• Remember that you need to provide evidence of how you have "followed the rules" in your code(s) of practice.

Areas that seem important to me are

• Privacy
• Copyright
• Appropriate language and use
• Teacher professional standards.

Sources of information include:

• Teacher Union guidelines for Web 2 safety for teachers
• Netsafe considerations for blogging and Web 2 in schools
• The use policy of whichever Web 2 tool you decide to use (Blogger, Facebook, Bebo...)
• School ploicy on our web presence - am trying to track this down and will let you know when I have found it.