GEM 5 Cyber Law by Aimee M. Bissonette Chapter 8 Ethical Issues

This chapter takes the focus from legal issues of use of the Internet to ethical issues.  It discusses cyber ethics and ethics training.

Three issues are discussed that relate to cyber ethics.  Three scenarios are given where the use of cyber ethics are questionable.  The first scenario discusses the inappropriate use of school resources by the students, teachers, staff, and administration.  The second scenario deals with schools allowing commercial entities to have access to the school systems where the students will be working.  The example given, Zap Me, exposes the students to multiple ads as well as collects information, such as student's age, sex, and zip code, about each student that can make it unsafe for the students.  The third scenario is just flat out violence that students are taping and posting on the Internet.  Teens are so  impressed by these videos that they create their own in which they commit criminal acts and are not making good ethical decisions about their behavior and what they are putting on line.

The next section was ethics training which discusses some ways to prevent these ethical issues from occurring.  It expresses the need for all people who use computers and the Internet to be aware of these ethical issues and to receive proper training to prevent them from occurring.  When students first begin to use a computer and then go on to use the Internet is the best time for them to begin to use the ethical use of the computer.  Teachers need to discuss with their students ethical behaviors when they use the computer as well as working these issues into instruction, assignments, and assessments so that the students are well aware of the correct behavior expected of them when using the computer and the Internet.  The teachers need to be well aware of technology and the ethical use of it so that they can pass it on to their students.  The book has a gray box that would be good to make into a poster and post by the computers.  It is on page 85 and is called the "Ten Commandments of Computer Ethics.  I think that this would be a good visual reminder for students to see that would help them to develop an understanding of the ethical use of computers.