Privacy in our public online spaces

photo by Rob Pongsajapan



Is anything private in our online world? Many of us may think that if we don’t physically type in personal information on a website or respond to unsolicited email, we’re safe. But almost everything you do on the Internet is tracked in some way. For example, just by accessing this blog, a little widget on the right side of the page has determined what city you are in. Hello, Bristol! G’day, Sydney! Hey, Vancouver!

Seems harmless? Well, maybe it is. But it’s possible that by hitting my blog, you’ve created one more piece of information about your surfing habits that is added to your digital dossier. In their book Born Digital, John Palfrey and Urs Gasser (2008) suggest that “all the digital information held, in many different hands, about a given person makes up his or her digital dossier” (p. 39). If your digital dossier only contained data about what blogs about educational technology you’ve stumbled upon, maybe you might feel okay about that. But Palfrey and Gasser contend that at “no time in human history has information about a young person – or anyone, for that matter – been more freely and publicly accessible to so many others” (p. 54).

You might answer, but surely there are laws against anyone using my personal information unless I have given my express permission. Unfortunately, we increasingly find ourselves in positions that make it seem like the law hasn’t kept up with our lives, as we saw in my last blog about copyright, intellectual property and freedom. Palfrey and Gasser noted the similarities between privacy and copyright in respect to law:

“...traditional legal mechanisms will not work as well as they have previously. A similar shift has occurred in the copyright environment: It’s become so easy to easy to make a copy of a creative work, and social norms are so strong that a chasm has grown between what the law says and what digital natives do” (p. 82).

Clearly there is a massive challenge ahead of us to determine as educators and teacher-librarians how we will assist digital natives to protect their privacy. When students are online in our schools and libraries, is their privacy guaranteed? Not necessarily. Helen Adams has asserted that recent or proposed changes in legislation for four U.S. state legislatures concerning library records show “the majority lack understanding of or support for privacy rights for minors using library media centers”.
Although many computer users know that there are those out there who will try to steal your identity, go phishing, hack into another’s data, or launch harmful viruses, how many people realize that, for example, in Pennsylvania anyone under 18 may have their library use records released to a parent or guardian (if new legislation is passed)? In other words, not only are students in libraries potentially allowing private information to be divulged in their online activities such as using Facebook or mySpace, state or provincial laws may also allow student privacy to be invaded by a family member.

Then again, should libraries and librarians be responsible for how privacy is maintained by computer users who are using Web 2.0 applications, especially social networking applications such as Facebook or MySpace? Isn’t that akin to librarians getting involved with what media people are signing out – in essence, no one’s business? In a blog post entitled “The Central Problem of Library 2.0: Privacy”, Rory Litwin eloquently stated what he sees as the main dilemma:

· The difficulty that I think we have to grapple with in considering the Library 2.0 idea is that libraries and Web 2.0 services are based on serving two very different essential activities, and those activities have an opposite relationship to privacy.
· Web 2.0 websites are, with some exceptions, based primarily on sharing information, but sharing information in a particular way: essentially, they are about seeing and being seen.
· Freedom Foundation and others have raised awareness of privacy issues with respect to a host of internet technologies and practices. Many internet users share these concerns about their privacy in theory, but think little of sharing highly personal information on blogs and social networking sites.

At the moment, social networking sites are blocked in my school division. I have no first-hand knowledge of how the students I work with are controlling (or not controlling) their privacy online as regards these kinds of applications, because they are not allowed to use them in schools. However, if my students are typical Internet surfers, it is likely that they are sharing private information willy-nilly.

As web 2.0 application users, bloggers like you and me have our own privacy issues to contend with. As Doug Johnson has kindly reminded readers, ecommunications are not private and are also not necessarily protected by free speech laws. Johnson quotes thePennsylvania State Education Association Legal Division:

“As a school employee, you must exercise extreme caution when you engage in blogging or other forms of Internet communication. Keep in mind that your First Amendment rights can be limited by virtue of your position as a school employee.”
As students should understand their online behaviour can have consequences, so should we; anything we write can be read not only by friends but also by employers, potential employers, enemies (!), acquaintances, friends of friends, complete strangers…you get the picture. Johnson tells bloggers that we should:

· Write assuming your boss is reading.
· Gripe globally; praise locally.
· Write for edited publications.
· Write out of goodness.

Generally, I would say that these are good ideas for everyone. Maybe students can’t necessarily write for edited publications, but that may be the case for many other bloggers as well.

So what can we do to move towards guarding our own privacy as well as that of our students? A good start is simply becoming more informed. Privacytown is a site created administered by Canada’s Office of Consumer Affairs, and I must say it is one of the more informative, well-written sites I have ever seen associated with a government agency. It’s not patronizing or condescending, and it actually contains some humour! (check out this example – “Privacy isn't exactly a recent concept. In fact, you might argue that it is the world's oldest obsession -- well, maybe the second oldest.”)

I don’t think it hurts any of us to learn or be reminded about data mining, the use of cookies, data shadows, and e-mail privacy. Right now, I don’t know the level of understanding my students have concerning these issues; my immediate goal is to become a lot more informed and be prepared to address them when I can in the school setting.

Works Cited:

Palfrey, J., & Gasser, U. (2008). Privacy. In Born Digital (pp. 53-82). New York: Basic Books.


photo by Andrew Magill

© © © © ©


Copyright. Intellectual Property. Intellectual freedom. How many of us think about these issues on a regular basis, or even rarely?

I know some people do. A few years ago I ran across an article I had written which had been copied and posted, unattributed to me, on someone else’s site. I sent an email that said something simple like, “Hey, I noticed you have an article I wrote on your site.” The webmaster wrote back, apologizing, asking which article it was and assuring me that I would be credited properly. In fact, I wasn’t worried about getting credit at all, I was only interested in making a connection with a person who thought enough of my work to post it online. I understand that some people in my shoes may have been hankering for attribution or credit or payment, but I wasn’t. The article was originally published in a magazine that had a limited readership, so I was just stoked that someone had the gumption and ingenuity to prolong the piece’s viewing lifespan and widen readership. It had been published a few years earlier and I had already been paid and received my byline, so if someone could learn or be entertained by it in a new format, more power to the webmaster.

What this incident illustrated to me is that some people placed more importance on crediting others’ work (at least the early years of the World Wide Web) than I did, even when it was my work being copied and pasted. My original article and the magazine it was published in contained little or no opportunity for someone to contact me and request permission for republishing. No harm, no foul.

Fast forward to today, when sharing information, collaborating, and learning in an online setting all offer a myriad of opportunities to steal, plagiarize, copy and paste and generally act irresponsibly (or illegally). Simple guidelines for what constitutes fair use and what is copyright infringement are either not easily accessible or at least not-so-simple for most students or educators.

I have touched in a previous blog on the attitudes and learning habits of digital natives. But today’s computer users and their attitude to copyright and intellectual property deserve a closer examination. David Pogue has related with dismay that according to his very informal research, many digital natives have no compunctions when it comes to downloading music or movies without paying for them. Should it be a surprise that many people today don’t find it necessary to pay for what they find online or worry about attribution or giving credit to others? In fact, the vehemence with which downloaders justify their actions is evident in our wired world, and there are many examples to be found on YouTube. Here’s a short one:



Yet music companies are suing downloaders (and winning!), and anti-piracy ads from the film industry have become ubiquitous. It seems that these real-life instances aren’t affecting peoples’ attitudes about copyright and intellectual property, so the need for direction from educators is clear. Although it may seem that it’s tough to figure out where to begin, Mike Ribble’s Passport to Digital Citizenship could be one place to look at first. The article offers readers a definition of digital citizenship, 9 elements of digital citizenship, and a 4-stage Technology Learning Framework for Teaching Digital Citizenship. One important component of Ribble’s article is that he stresses that because of the disconnect in what is being done in schools and what is done by students in their free time, parents need to be aware of issues within digital citizenship if there is to be some success in helping foster good choices.

And of course aside from downloading music and movies, what are many of those students doing in their free time? Checking out Facebook and MySpace, of course. Annette Lamb’s article Intellectual Freedom for Youth: Social Technology and Social Networks includes some very eloquently stated points. For example, Lamb asserts that social technologies “test the boundaries of intellectual freedom precisely because they provide an open forum for ideas”. It seems like a simple point, but I hadn’t thought of it in that way previously. If we are filtering or blocking social networks in our schools and libraries, are we hindering intellectual freedom? I touched on filtering a few weeks ago on this blog, but Lamb points out that students need to be aware of digital citizenship and copyright as well:

“While social technologies can support the creation of original poetry, music, and scientific data, it also can be a source of negative content, including gossip, violent images, and misinformation. Teens may use adult mediasharing Web sites such as Flickr for photos or YouTube for video. If so, it is essential to help them act responsibly in a social environment not intended for children. Students need to understand how to evaluate Web content, follow copyright laws, and develop effective methods of communication to make optimal use of this environment.” Therefore, if we ignore social networking sites, we may not only be impeding intellectual freedom, but we may be putting student digital citizenship on the backburner.

Also, Helen R. Adams has written about goals for school library media specialists, such as: “Guard against barriers to intellectual freedom, such as age or grade-level restrictions, limitations on access to electronic information, requirements for special permission to use materials and resources, and restricted collections.” If intellectual freedom means that young people should be allowed to access social networks such as Lamb suggests above, then Adams is arguing against filtering. It seems to me we have a long way to go before filtering ends in North American schools.

So what kinds of things can we do to help students learn more about their intellectual freedom and copyright? I think we need to create more resource lists like this one – it helps students find images and sounds that aren’t illegal or morally suspect.
I’m also really excited about the possibilities of Creative Commons, which is described as “a nonprofit corporation dedicated to making it easier for people to share and build upon the work of others, consistent with the rules of copyright.” I’ve been using images from Creative Commons for a while now, and the possibilities for students to find pictures, music, written works, and so on and use them responsibly are great. Now, it’s also time for educators to take the idea even farther and help their students to be a part of that community that shares, guiding learners to upload and make the resource banks even larger and richer.

I, and I suspect many others, also need to learn more about what constitutes fair use. Alisa Burch cites North Carolina State University’s copyright tutorial as telling readers that fair use allows the limited use of copyrighted material without prior permission of the copyright holder if the use is a fair one based on these four factors:
1. The purpose and character of the use, including whether the use is of a commercial nature or is for nonprofit educational purposes;
2. The nature of the copyrighted work;
3. The amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole; and
4. The effect of the use upon the potential market for or value of the copyrighted work.

In his article Who’s Afraid of the Big Bad ©?, Doug Johnson hit the nail on the head when he wrote that few subjects “spark more disagreement and confusion than copyright. As an information professional, I’m often not certain that I have a firm grasp of it.” I’m not an information professional and am only starting to wrap my head around copyright and the issues surrounding it such as fair use and intellectual freedom. In fact, once you start thinking about copyright and the number of mistakes you or your students may have made, inadvertently or otherwise, it’s easy to go too far the other way and handcuff yourself into not taking advantage of the wide world of resources at your fingertips. Johnson gives an intersting anecdote about looking for permission or assuming permission is not given:

“A Singapore educator once told me that in his country, people tend to suffer from NUTS—the No U-Turn Syndrome—and Americans don’t. When no signs are posted at an intersection, Singapore drivers assume U-turns are illegal; United States drivers assume the opposite. He felt that our “assume it’s OK” attitude gives our country a competitive edge.”

Johnson’s anecdote relates to a fear of what’s “not allowed” and connects to the first of four points:
Change the focus of copyright instruction from what’s forbidden to what’s permitted. When there’s doubt, err on the side of the user. Be prepared to answer questions when a law makes little sense, seems inconsequential, is widely ignored, or when breaking it may serve a higher moral purpose. Teach copyright from the point of view of the producer, as well as the consumer.
To me, Johnson’s greatest point is that as educators, we can help change the focus from what’s “forbidden” to what’s “permitted”; we can be positive about what is legally and morally stable, create lists and links to sites that offer attributed use such as Creative Commons, steer learners to free easy-to-use online citation guides like Noodlebib, and encourage dialogue between students on all of the topics above. The Digiteen Global Project looks like a pretty good start for focused authentic learning. The creators say that Digiteen is a “digital citizenship global project…where schools and classrooms from around the world will discuss issues, research and take action to do with being online in the 21st century. The project also has an Digiteen Ning where students and teachers connect, interact, share multimedia and reflect on their experiences throughout the project”. Wow! Sounds like some educators and students are already tackling most of the tough issues surrounding copyright and digital citizenship.

While we’re feeling pretty positive about the possiblities of using Web 2.0 tools such as Digiteen does become more informed better digital citizens, I’ll leave you with a short video clip that made me stop and think. Although the video is funny (and also unfortunately contains some inappropriate language), it is also poking fun at attempts to curb online movie or music piracy. Aside from pointing out the absurdity of how the word “piracy” is used in this context, the video also mirrors how seriously many people feel about the issue. Don’t you think?

21st Century Digital Boy

http://www.jimcarroll.com/weblog/archives/pictures/baby.jpg


“I’m a 21st Century Digital Boy
I don’t know how to live, but I’ve got a lot of toys” – Brett Gurewitz

The above song lyrics were written circa 1988, but some might say they seem even more phrophetic now. You would be forgiven for thinking that the words were written by a Luddite, but in actuality they were written by a punk rock guitarist/record label head and sung by a vocalist who has Ph.D. in evolutionary biology and teaches life sciences at UCLA.

Many learners today are digital boys and girls, and they have a lot of “toys” – cell phones/Blackberrys, laptops, desktops, Wiis/Playstations/X-Boxes, iPhones, iPods, televisions, and dvd players, not to mention accounts on MySpace, Facebook, Hotmail, gmail, instant messaging and chat sites, and so on. Prensky calls those students who have grown up with digital technology Digital Natives. Prensky goes on to relate a number of issues arising from Digital Natives’ perspectives:

“Digital Natives are used to receiving information really fast. They like to parallel process and multi-task. They prefer their graphics before their text rather than the opposite. They prefer random access (like hypertext). They function best when networked. They thrive on instant gratification and frequent rewards. They prefer games to “serious” work. (Does any of this sound familiar?)”

Yes, it does sound familiar, and the first points he mentions are important to consider. The last two are problematic for me, though. It’s good to recognize that digital natives “thrive on instant gratification and frequent rewards”, but it’s also unrealistic to hope that as educators we can offer those things on a daily basis. I’m not sure anyone gets instant gratification all the time, I know I don’t. Do you? And the point about liking games more than serious work – is this something new? Doesn’t everyone?

Prensky continues to inform that his “own preference for teaching Digital Natives is to invent computer games to do the job, even for the most serious content.” That is an interesting idea, and one which he seems very confident about – he explains that he can create a game to learn just about anything. But, like instant gratification, I cannot offer that option to my students. I can certainly work towards engaging them in ways that games do, but I can’t develop games in order for my students to hit all of the outcomes in my curriculum. In fact, I don’t want to, either; I don’t think playing games is the only way to develop lifelong learners, and I’m not sure that learning through games will help most students learn about “how to live”, to go back to the quote from Gurewitz. It's not that I don't appreciate positive elements found in gaming (please see my last post about that), I just don't see educators making everything into a game.

At any rate, Prensky has certainly given educators a lot to consider as far as pondering the needs of digital natives. The risk of not properly utilizing technology in schools is that we may widen the chasm between tech use in private time and educational non-tech time. If students are developing skills and interests that educators ignore, it’s possible that some learners won’t “know how to live” – or won’t know how to use some of those skills for purposes other than entertainment or personal/social reasons. Dr. Gary Small and Gigi Vorgan argue here that their brain research shows that "new technology can have both positive and negative effects on our brains. Digital natives tend to have greater multi-tasking skills, improved peripheral vision and higher efficiency using technology. However, Digital Immigrants appear to have more advanced people skills - better face to face contact, more ability to solve problems, work in groups, and express empathy". Maybe we need to recognize and remember the positive elements that digital immigrants are bringing to the equation.

Small and Vorgan also have suggested that multitasking may not be such a positive development either.
In their article entitled Is Multitasking Really More Efficient?, the authors suggest that “though multitasking often makes us feel like we are getting more done when we divide our attention, we are not necessarily being more efficient. Studies show that when our brains switch back and forth from one task to another, our neural circuits take a small break in between – a time-consuming process that reduces efficiency. It’s not unlike closing down one computer program and booting up another – it takes a few moments.”

The authors also cite neuroscientists and psychologists while stating that "the bottom line is that the brain seems to work better when implementing a single sustained task than when multitasking, despite most people’s perception that they are doing more and at a faster pace when they multitask." The authors do go on to say that listening to music (if it is music you enjoy) can be helpful to thought processes.

Educators should recognize that digital learners are used to multitasking without expecting that all students will perform better doing more than one thing at a time. Perhaps there are times when listening to music unobtrusively works in the classroom or the library, but there are still times when teacher need to help students to focus on one task. If we all help drive students further towards always doing two or three things at once, I think we would be a doing a number of them a grave disservice. I would say the same about students’ preference for playing games, not to mention all of the other “toys” learners access today: what can educators do to appeal to those who are used to fast-paced environments, quick decision-making and problem-solving opportunities, collaborating with others, learning at individual rates, and so on? First, recognize that we may not be able to change students’ proclivities in these areas (as Prensky suggests). Second, I would hope that educators are already planning with these developments in mind, as well as looking toward what technology can assist these learners.For those of us who can’t create games to teach everything, one good checklist for engaging digital learners can be found at The ISTE National Educational Technology Standards (NETS•T) and Performance Indicators for Teachers.

Furthermore, on an individual and personal level, what games, applications and tools can we easily become a little more familiar with? For example, how many of us have watched or played the most popular games? Don’t many of us make time to read novels that popular with our students? If we really value games as important to our learners and recognize that there may be positive elements in many of these games, shouldn’t we learn a little bit about them? Who’s up for some research?