Part of the topic this week was on privacy laws in this digital age, specifically FIPPA which pertains to Canadians. Digital privacy is not unfamiliar to me, as I was born in 2000 and grew up with the internet, but is not something I had given much thought to in the educator role context. I was taught as a child to be careful who I spoke to online/gave out information to, “stranger danger”, online bullying etc, but I never considered the implications of being responsible for teaching this (and many more evolving, increasingly complex technology safety considerations) to youth in my classes.

FIPPA essentially states that educators are responsible for ensuring their students data is stored within Canada and if they choose to use services such as Google Classroom which store data outside of the country, they are required to give students and/or parents an informed consent form of some kind to read through and sign before having the student register for such as service and use it at school. Educators should also take the opportunity to educate students about the importance of privacy and data collection on the internet, including breaking down legal jargon such as FIPPA laws in a way students can understand.

In one way, this looks like teaching students what proper citations are and why we need to cite authors/creators when we use them in our work even under fair use policies. The work and ideas of another person is their intellectual property, and we need to make sure that we are teaching students how to distinguish what is “common knowledge” and what is someone else’s unique work. We also need to make sure that when we do use someone else’s property that we are doing so within the license they have allowed others to do. For example, some creators may allow a student to use their work for educational purposes (fair use policy) but not to be modified or changed in any way or for commercial purposes. Another person may allow their work to be used freely in any way as long as they are given proper credit. We need to teach students how to find this information, and use sources appropriately in light of it, and why it is important to do so (ethics, legal reasons…)

This is especially apparent when we think of things like Chat GPT and other artificial intelligence that has become more common in our world. Chat GPT was “taught” by existing human work, much of it not authorized by the original creator. It brings up many questions, such as, is artificial intelligence ethical? Should Chat GPT be required to be modified to “cite” its sources when it produces work? What are the implications if we choose to use works made from artificial intelligence in our own works? These are several of the questions that I will need to explore as a teacher in the 2020s and beyond as the world continues to evolve at a rapid pace.

Image Credit:

Photo by Towfiqu barbhuiya on Unsplash