Anne Bubnic's List: Digital Citizenship/Cyberethics

Cyberethics curriculum and lesson plan created for elementary and middle school teachers by the Department of Justice

Meridian Education has been producing educational videos for over a decade. They just released two in a series on CyberSafety and CyberEthics. They generously provide a 13-minute preview video clip that is actually quite complete and could be used in whole or in part at training sessions.

Their five-part video series on Cybersafety includes a clip with Katie Canton, a national spokesperson for Web Wise Kids. Katie is young and articulate and tells the story of her romance with a guy online who turned out to be much older than she imagined. She later testified against him in court. Katie lives in the San Francisco Bay Area.

Be prepared to answer questions when the law seems to make little sense, when a law is inconsequential, when a law is widely ignored, or when breaking the law may serve a higher moral purpose. [Doug Johnson]

From the Center for Intellectual Property, University of Maryland. The Center for Intellectual Property provides education, research, and resources for the higher education community on copyright, academic integrity, and the emerging digital environment. The Center accomplishes its mission through the delivery of workshops and conferences, online training, consultations on campus, and electronic and print publications, and it provides continuous updates on legislative developments at the local, state, national, and international level.

Except for the occasional plagiarized passage or unattributed reference in student research papers, most veteran K-12 educators have had little experience dealing with copyright issues in their classrooms. With the advent of the Internet, however, their need to know about copyright law and to understand its implications for such activities as Internet research, downloading programs and documents, creating class Web sites, and installing software on school networks has increased dramatically.

All you need to know about copyright use and citations.

Chances are your district’s acceptable use policy is outdated. With the proliferation of Web 2.0 tools, multifunction cell phones and handheld computers, to name just three, it’s obvious that keeping AUPs up to date requires constant attention.

Many younger people have very nuanced ideas about Internet privacy. They post deeply personal information on social networking sites, but understand and use various privacy locks so only certain people can see their profiles. Good discussion points in here for a digital citizenship class.

Public schools and local governments may have more stringent requirements than most businesses for email archiving and electronic discovery. Yet, with their limited budgets, schools and local governments are often the least equipped to respond.The newly revised Federal Rules of Civil Procedure define how email must be handled in federal court cases. Businesses tend to think that the FRCP focus is on interstate lawsuits. Schools and governments, however, also need to be concerned with emails relating to federally funded activities or any activity governed by federal legislation.In addition, schools and local governments have the burden of responding to (1) requests under open meeting and Freedom of Information Act laws, (2) offensive emails or those with sexual content involving students, and (3) emailed threats.

CTAP Region IV has distributed 10,000 wall-size posters to San Francisco Bay Area Schools through a grant provided by AT&T Education. The posters are also available as a free download for schools nationwide.

Cyberethics curriculum from the eMINTS project. These sites highlight the debate about downloading music from the Internet for free. Watch videos of musicians expressing their thoughts on the issue. There is also information about copyright law and explanations about why these types of downloads are considered illegal and unethical. The sites are helpful for teachers who want students to debate the issue. There are links to eThemes Resources on Internet safety and computer basics.

OnGuardOnline.gov provides practical tips from the federal government and the technology industry to help you be on guard against Internet fraud, secure your computer, and protect your personal information. There are ten colorful flash-based quizzes here appropriate for students on security topics such as phishing, hackers, spyware etc.

When you least expect it, one of your students takes out his cell phone and secretly records you. The next thing you know, the video is posted on YouTube and the world is watching.

Made a mistake? Own it, Fix it, Learn from it." Learn how this teacher handled the consequences of computer hacking attempts by her students.

Professor Eric Faden of Bucknell University created this humorous, yet informative, review of copyright principles delivered through the words of the very folks we can thank for nearly endless copyright terms. View as streaming video, download as an MP4 file or watch it on YouTube.

Professor Eric Faden of Bucknell University created this humorous, yet informative, review of copyright principles delivered through the words of the very folks we can thank for nearly endless copyright terms. View as streaming video, download as an MP4 file or watch it on YouTube.

The Berkman Center's Interactive collection features conversations with and talks by leading cyber-scholars, entrepreneurs, activists, and policymakers as they explore topics such as: the factors that influence knowledge creation and dissemination in the digital age; the character of power as the worlds of governance, business, citizenship, and the media meet the Internet; and the opportunities, role, and limitations of new technologies in learning.

Burt Lo from CTAP6 attended the CTAP4 School Administrator workshop, MySpace, Your Campus and You(Tube). In this blog, he captures some of the take-aways from the workshop.

More cases of students charged with felonies for nude photo-sharing via cellphone a disturbing new cyberbullying trend.