Oh My!, Oh, No!, Really? Ah, Ha!, Hmm…Go to your blog and post a reaction to the material and concepts you learned in this course. You might share something you learned that surprised you, that pushed your thinking, or that forced you to question an existing belief, or you might share a new belief/understanding that you are still questioning.

Before taking this class I had taken a business ethics course so I was anxious to learn about information technology and ethics and their relationship to education. Per the syllabus, the goals of this course included:

• To question conventional assumptions about new technologies
• To identify flaws in claims, take stances on issues, and provide justification for those stances
• To use technology that we are learning about in this course
• To engage in inquiry-based learning to stimulate critical thinking and discussion

In order to properly reflect on what I have learned during this course I think the best way to approach this last EPS415 blog post is to reflect on each module individually.

Ethics and Critical Thinking: This module provided an in-depth look at ethics. I had no idea there were so many fields of philosophical thought. I liked visualizing Aristotle’s argument that virtues fall along a continuum with the midpoint being the stance between extremes (Woodbury, 2003, p. 30). It is true that the midpoint or balance point is different for each person based on their culture, education, values, etc.

Access, Digital Divide in an Online World: We have discussed access and the digital divide to some extent in previous classes but this module pushed us to research this relevant to developing countries. Unfortunately, there are issues that we have not overcome in our own country. We need to be flexible in the online world as we interact with those on other parts of the world. We need to be cognizant that others have disabilities hindering their use of the Internet.

Intellectual Property and Cheating: The growth of the Internet has made intellectual property rights and cheating a hot topic. I was able to learn more about many of the laws now in place regarding copyright. I also learned even more than in our previous class about plagiarism. I was amazed to learn that plagiarism is accepted in many non-Western cultures.

Credibility, Critique, and Web Evaluation: Teachers need to help students learn how to become critical thinkers especially when they are subjected to information overload when accessing the Internet. I enjoyed the discuss and debate portion of this module about the use of Wikipedia as a reliable source.

Privacy, Free Speech, Censorship, and the Law: Internet filters, the Hatch Act, CIPA, public libraries use or not of filters, censorship and selection – these were very interesting module topics. I thoroughly researched the statement about University of Illinois employees being banned from wearing political buttons or placing political bumper stickers on their vehicle. Unlike some of my classmates, I found that this was true only for a few days in the fall of 2008.  The discussion was lively about instructors wearing political buttons!

Socialization: I use several social networking tools for different reasons and some at a higher frequency than others. Levels of privacy were a large part of the topic but more importantly, should social networking tools be a large part of instruction just because they are so popular? I say no because nothing should be included in a course design just for the sake of including it. Whatever goes into course design should have merit and assist in achieving the goals of the course. 

How We Communicate, Think, and Learn – New Forms of Literacy: Text messaging and the pervasive use of text speak among the younger generation was very informative in this module. I am not an advocate of text speak being allowed in a formal learning environment unless it is the focus of a class lesson or course on linguistic differences.

Putting It All Together: I was most disturbed by the article on trolls (Schwartz, 2008). It is unfathomable to me that there are people on the Internet acting anonymously for the sole purpose of hurting another person. I like Google in every way and found the Carr article interesting (2008). Google isn’t the enemy in illiteracy. What we have to be aware of is the use of critical thinking skills when teaching, conducting research and making ethical decisions.

I will take away from this class a better respect for accessibility, the digital divide, web evaluation and the proper use, if at all, of social networking tools in an educational setting.

- – - References – - -

Carr, N. (2008, July/August). Is Google making us stupid? The Atlantic. Retrieved from http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200807/google

Schwartz, M. (2008, August 3). The trolls among us. The New York Times Magazine. Retrieved from http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/03/magazine/03trolls-t.html?_r=1&ref=magazine

Woodbury, M. (2003). Computer and information ethics. Champaign, IL: Stipes