Header image: KF in Dall-E
https://doi.org/10.1111/bjet.13035
- School policies, public policies and regulations related to social media and data privacy in the education sphere are inadequate and in flux.
- Teachers as “digital role models“
- Given how modern society is considered data-rich, data-reliant and even data-driven, personal data literacy is an important part of digital competence
- Pangrazio and Selwyn (2019) define common types of personal data: data that users—to a high degree voluntarily—give to applications and devices (self-tracking information, social media data, emails and videos), data extracted from users by applications and devices on behalf of others (involuntarily practices, eg, online searches) and data processed by applications on behalf of users (dashboards, analytics pages).
- Teachers can find themselves caught between “contradictory technology imperatives” (Leatham & Robertson, 2017, p. 1261), as they are encouraged to both make innovative use of technology in their classrooms and protect students’ privacy (Krueger & Moore, 2015).
- Teachers who choose to use social media for professional learning or as a part of teaching and learning activities may, therefore, not benefit from particularly clear or helpful school policies or guidelines related to social media.
- Muls (2019) note that “schools often experience struggles in determining their position within the social media debate” (p.1).
- Identifying the nature of social media policies in high schools https://doi.org/10.1007/s10639-019-09971-7
- the GDPR does not provide practical educational guidelines for educators.
- Furthermore, both FERPA (1974) and COPPA (2000) were enacted before the advent of many of the technologies—smartphones, social media, apps, Google Suite—that are major players in education today.
- there is little empirical evidence to support the digital native concept generally
- Research suggests teachers’ attitudes and beliefs have emerged as the “true gatekeepers” regarding the impact of technology on students’ learning and performance.
- Supposedly digital native pre-service teachers are expected by some to develop (or innately possess) certain digital competencies as educators. In particular, they are expected to be able to facilitate digital competence in their future students.
- To date, the most common approach to personal data literacy, especially when working in the school context, is that of “data privacy and safety”; however, there are other approaches that advocate for a media literacy approach, which focuses on data competence and the use of data for empowerment purposes (Pangrazio & Selwyn, 2019).
- “I know the general rule to err on the side of caution and to not communicate with students over your personal social media. But as far as specific laws go, I’m not quite sure exactly what they say [Participant 42].”
- Asked whether they had read the privacy policies for any of the social media tools they used, 72.3% reported that they had never done so
- KF: And the rest were lying
- Large percentages of respondents reported being uncertain about policies regarding their social media use. Asked if policies in their countries allowed them to use social media for their own professional purposes, 51.4% indicated yes, 2.0% indicated no and 46.6% reported they were uncertain. Asked if policies in their countries allowed teachers to use social media for educational purposes with students, 42.6% indicated yes, 2.0% indicated no and 55.4% reported they were uncertain.
- As in the study of Obar and Oeldorf- Hirsch (2020), a privacy paradox seems to be present: “when asked, individuals appear to value privacy, but when behaviours are examined, individual actions suggest that privacy is not a high priority” (p. 22). This contradiction led the authors to declare that the biggest lie on the Internet is the statement “I agree to these terms and conditions” (Obar & Oeldorf-Hirsch, 2020, p. 2). When users so frequently ignore terms of service, it is easy for educators do so as well, despite the need to consider ethical and professional implications (Walster, 2017) and for companies to develop privacy policies that are easier to read (Kununka, 2018).
- The lack of teacher training in digital citizenship in the U.S. and safety in Europe (Gordillo, López- Pernas, & Barra, 2019) and the responsibility that teachers have regarding teaching about and serving as role models of technology use justifies attention to data privacy and data literacy matters in teacher education.
- going beyond safety concerns to address data agency would benefit pre-service teachers as future technology role models.