EEND 681 Module 2 Discussion
Hello Class,
For this week's module we were to examine the conduct and ethical guidelines of four professional organizations. I have to be honest, I typically spend very little time reading these types of documents and struggled with this activity. This is one of the many reasons I know I belong in the classroom and never plan to step out in any kind of administrative role. I feel like administrators spend more time with documents like these and less time with the students themselves, the latter being my favorite part of the profession. In saying that, here is my review of the 4 organizations and how they address the social, ethical, equitable and legal standards for educational technology implementation.
The first organization I reviewed was the Association for Educational Communications and Technology (AECT). Their code of professional ethics was easy to read and follow and I thought addressed the four aspects we were looking at for this assignment. The code really focuses on making sure everyone has an equal opportunity to benefit from educational technology. In fact, of the four organizations, the AECT might have done the best job as far as equitable and ethical standards are concerned. Often, phrases like varying points of view or emphasizing diversity are used to show the organizations stand on the importance of equal rights to educational technology. Codes 6, 8, and 9 in the "Commitment to the Individual" all focus on refraining from bias or discrimination towards individuals based on race, religious beliefs, gender, or any other stereotypes. These three codes, more than the entire rest of the document really cover their organizations viewpoint on the social, legal and of course equitable and ethical questions that come up when designing appropriate technology standards for education. My favorite part of the document, and you will see a theme here, is code 6 in the "Commitment to Society" section. It reads, "Shall promote positive and minimize negative environmental impacts of educational technologies". As an environmentalist that attempts to do this every decision myself, I love that a company takes accountability for their role in minimizing negative environmental impact. Sadly, most companies only care about the "bottom line" and spend little time worrying about how we all leave a "footprint" with our activities.
The second organization I reviewed was the ACM Code of Ethics and Professional Conduct. The Association for Computing Machinery also puts heavy emphasis on equality and ethics which is best summed up by code 1.4, Be fair and take action not to discriminate. They also list factors as race, sex, and religion, but also take not of age discrimination as well as disabilities. I think this is an important addition to equitable standards and puts the ACM ahead of the AECT. As a teacher in a Co-taught classroom I think it is absolutely critical to consider students with physical and intellectual disabilities when designing educational technology standards. I also feel like the ACM took time to emphasize honesty and trustworthyness as a cornerstone of their codes. They also have one code that focuses on minimizing unwanted environmental impacts which put a huge smile on my face, and made me think why our current government doesn't have that built into their decision making as of late. One negative of the ACM in my opinion was their focus on physical harm to individuals and equipment instead of the emotional side of discrimination. This is probably because this organization seems to focus more on the "machinery" aspect of technology.
Next, I looked at the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers. I expected this document to lend the least towards education practices but actually found this document very concise and to the point. Honestly, it might have been my favorite read of all four organizations because I understood everything I was reading. I explored their website and the IEEE claims to be the world's largest technical professional organization dedicated to advancing technology. That's a bold claim, but I did feel like they did the best job of delivering a concise code that covered social, ethical, equitable and legal guidelines. Discrimination was a big focus of this document as well as ethical design. Lastly, I loved that they focused on sustainability and the importance of disclosing issues that might endanger the public or the environment. Overall, I was very impressed that all organizations understood the importance of these issues.
Lastly, the Consortium for School Networking has an extremely detailed framework for providing technology in an educational environment. Since this document was designed with schools in mind, I expected to like it the most. Unfortunately, I found this document long, hard to follow, and way to technical to ever utilize personally. Presentation was nice, color coded by the three different categories in the framework, but I found it hard to understand. I felt like the overall document excelled at the legal side of instituting technology and also focused on fairness among educators and professional conduct. I feel like this document would be studied by someone who wanted to work in our tech department. To me, it feels more suited for administration policies for their employees rather than a document that could be considered by teachers as a framework for providing technology for their students.
In conclusion, I found this module very technical, and at times above my head or realm of consideration as a tool to use as an educator. I feel like all 4 organizations focused on the ethics of implementation well as well as equal opportunity for users. I enjoyed that most considered the physical impact of technology on the environment, something I wish more organizations would take accountability for in the future. Overall, I do feel like I have a better understanding of implementing educational technology, but am happy I will never be an administrator dealing with implementation.
Thank you,
Jim Nielsen
Sources:
For this week's module we were to examine the conduct and ethical guidelines of four professional organizations. I have to be honest, I typically spend very little time reading these types of documents and struggled with this activity. This is one of the many reasons I know I belong in the classroom and never plan to step out in any kind of administrative role. I feel like administrators spend more time with documents like these and less time with the students themselves, the latter being my favorite part of the profession. In saying that, here is my review of the 4 organizations and how they address the social, ethical, equitable and legal standards for educational technology implementation.
The first organization I reviewed was the Association for Educational Communications and Technology (AECT). Their code of professional ethics was easy to read and follow and I thought addressed the four aspects we were looking at for this assignment. The code really focuses on making sure everyone has an equal opportunity to benefit from educational technology. In fact, of the four organizations, the AECT might have done the best job as far as equitable and ethical standards are concerned. Often, phrases like varying points of view or emphasizing diversity are used to show the organizations stand on the importance of equal rights to educational technology. Codes 6, 8, and 9 in the "Commitment to the Individual" all focus on refraining from bias or discrimination towards individuals based on race, religious beliefs, gender, or any other stereotypes. These three codes, more than the entire rest of the document really cover their organizations viewpoint on the social, legal and of course equitable and ethical questions that come up when designing appropriate technology standards for education. My favorite part of the document, and you will see a theme here, is code 6 in the "Commitment to Society" section. It reads, "Shall promote positive and minimize negative environmental impacts of educational technologies". As an environmentalist that attempts to do this every decision myself, I love that a company takes accountability for their role in minimizing negative environmental impact. Sadly, most companies only care about the "bottom line" and spend little time worrying about how we all leave a "footprint" with our activities.
The second organization I reviewed was the ACM Code of Ethics and Professional Conduct. The Association for Computing Machinery also puts heavy emphasis on equality and ethics which is best summed up by code 1.4, Be fair and take action not to discriminate. They also list factors as race, sex, and religion, but also take not of age discrimination as well as disabilities. I think this is an important addition to equitable standards and puts the ACM ahead of the AECT. As a teacher in a Co-taught classroom I think it is absolutely critical to consider students with physical and intellectual disabilities when designing educational technology standards. I also feel like the ACM took time to emphasize honesty and trustworthyness as a cornerstone of their codes. They also have one code that focuses on minimizing unwanted environmental impacts which put a huge smile on my face, and made me think why our current government doesn't have that built into their decision making as of late. One negative of the ACM in my opinion was their focus on physical harm to individuals and equipment instead of the emotional side of discrimination. This is probably because this organization seems to focus more on the "machinery" aspect of technology.
Next, I looked at the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers. I expected this document to lend the least towards education practices but actually found this document very concise and to the point. Honestly, it might have been my favorite read of all four organizations because I understood everything I was reading. I explored their website and the IEEE claims to be the world's largest technical professional organization dedicated to advancing technology. That's a bold claim, but I did feel like they did the best job of delivering a concise code that covered social, ethical, equitable and legal guidelines. Discrimination was a big focus of this document as well as ethical design. Lastly, I loved that they focused on sustainability and the importance of disclosing issues that might endanger the public or the environment. Overall, I was very impressed that all organizations understood the importance of these issues.
Lastly, the Consortium for School Networking has an extremely detailed framework for providing technology in an educational environment. Since this document was designed with schools in mind, I expected to like it the most. Unfortunately, I found this document long, hard to follow, and way to technical to ever utilize personally. Presentation was nice, color coded by the three different categories in the framework, but I found it hard to understand. I felt like the overall document excelled at the legal side of instituting technology and also focused on fairness among educators and professional conduct. I feel like this document would be studied by someone who wanted to work in our tech department. To me, it feels more suited for administration policies for their employees rather than a document that could be considered by teachers as a framework for providing technology for their students.
In conclusion, I found this module very technical, and at times above my head or realm of consideration as a tool to use as an educator. I feel like all 4 organizations focused on the ethics of implementation well as well as equal opportunity for users. I enjoyed that most considered the physical impact of technology on the environment, something I wish more organizations would take accountability for in the future. Overall, I do feel like I have a better understanding of implementing educational technology, but am happy I will never be an administrator dealing with implementation.
Thank you,
Jim Nielsen
Sources:
- Association for Educational Communications and Technology (AECT):http://aect.site-ym.com/members/group_content_view.asp?group=91131&id=309963 Code of Professional Ethics
- Association for Computing Machinery (ACM):https://www.acm.org/ Code of Ethics and Professional Conduct
- Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers-Computer Society (IEEE):https://www.ieee.org/about/corporate/governance/p7-8.html Code of Ethics
- Consortium for School Networking (CoSN): https://cosn.org/sites/default/files/pdf/Framework_111815_2015_Public.pdf Framework of Essential Skills – Ethics and Policies
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