You’re online shopping on a new website that you’ve seen advertised multiple times, and suddenly a pop-up on your screen tells you that you can receive 10% off of your first order if you simply enter your email address; this sounds simple enough, and you plan on purchasing something, so you enter it. As you’re checking out, you’re asked to enter your home address, phone number, email address, and credit card information. This is all a part of the process of online shopping, so you enter everything without thinking twice. As you click “Confirm Purchase” you feel the tiniest bit regretful for spending that much money, but the excitement of receiving your new shoes, clothes, or home appliance outweighs that regret. You don’t take a second to think about the fact that you never read the terms and conditions of this new website or if your information is really safe; should you be excited, or should you be concerned?

This past week in ECI 201 we talked about a very interesting- and honestly quite chilling- topic. How much of my “personal” information is available online to be purchased through large corporations? It’s something that I’ve never given much thought to, but as I started to think about the number of times I’ve entered my address and billing information to online shopping websites, or the instances which I’ve had to enter my social security number in order to verify my identity, I began to feel a bit… violated. While, yes, it is my fault for having entered so much information about myself on internet platforms, I guess I had always assumed that every website I used was trustworthy, and that they simply filed my info away in a place where nobody would ever access it again; but really, is that the case? I never bother to read the never-ending list of terms and conditions on new websites, and I always click “accept” to any requests the website makes of me without really giving it a second thought, just so I can make the process of buying a new pair of shoes go by quicker. Is it possible that I’ve given permission to different websites to sell my personal information to other companies if they so wish? The answer, as I found out in this week’s class, is yes.

 

Are you creeped out yet?

I definitely was. After completing an activity in class from which I found out that 30+ pieces of my “private info” (name, address, social security, credit card info, FINGERPRINT, etc.) could be floating around the internet somewhere, I began to wonder how much of those personal things I had put on the internet during school or while doing something related to schoolwork.

To do an activity that will give you some insight as to how many ‘digital traces’ you’re leaving, click this link and scroll down to the check boxes! Check off all of the devices that you use, and look at the number of traces you leave!

Had I ever been ask to enter personal information on a website by a teacher or administrator? As I considered this idea, I realized I may have had the option to create accounts on websites such as “funbrain.com”, etc. but was never required to. For items such as school emails etc., my teachers always told my parents about what I was doing beforehand. I then found out that this is due to the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act, or FERPA, administered by the U.S. Department of Education.  FERPA is “a Federal law that protects the privacy of student education records. The law applies to all schools that receive funds under an applicable program of the U.S. Department of Education. FERPA gives parents certain rights with respect to their children’s education records. These rights transfer to the student when he or she reaches the age of 18 or attends a school beyond the high school level.”

For more information with more detail, check out the video below!

FERPA Video

It was certainly comforting to know that schools can’t give out my information, but when we read a public service announcement from the Federal Bureau of Investigation that stated that the rapid growth of use of educational technology was possibly ‘posing risks’ to students due to data collection, I realized how big of a problem this could really be.

As a future teacher, it’s things like this that I am going to have to be so  wary about when incorporating technology and the internet into my classroom. Of course, there are so many positive things that come from EdTech, but what about the possible negatives? Will I be compromising the safety of my students?

Well, we went over a few things that I can do to ensure internet safety for my future students. Firstly, I’ll need to be familiar with the state laws that I’ll be teaching in. Seeing as I’ll likely teach in NC right out of college, I’ll need to be well acquainted with North Carolina’s online privacy protection laws, as well as my specific county/school’s rules and regulations. One big step that I can make in my classroom is ensuring that I don’t ask the students to use any sites where they would have to make an account/enter personal or identifying information. This will greatly decrease the risks of their privacy being violated. In cases that I do need students to enter something other than their first name, I’ll definitely make sure with all parents that this would be okay with them (seeing as it’s first acceptable according to NC and county policy).

Some other great options such as making sure to turn off my location services while taking pictures of students, etc. are linked here!

While student privacy protection is a big part of the use of educational technology that I had overlooked, I’ve learned just how important it is to be aware of, and how to do that in the classroom. How private are our lives, really?  I guess that’s up to us, and the information we’re willing to release to the world wide web.