*Post has nothing to do with that song. Move along.
**FOIPPA – Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act; aka, the reason why you can’t have nice things (in your digital classroom).
While BC has taken steps to ensure their educators are aware of the policies around student privacy and online resources / platforms, the new “normal” of closing of public schools has shown that not all teachers (and school districts) are aware of it or take it seriously. Take GoogleClassroom for example, where teachers still use that as their learning management system (LMS) to post class information or collect student assignments. Not only are Google services ubiquitous (meaning most individuals have an account), it’s fairly user-friendly compared to other third-party systems (no IT specialist to contact when students lose their password). However, it is not FOIPPA-compliant as their servers are hosted outside of Canada so we don’t know what happens to students’ data. Regan & Jesse (2019) highlighted the main concerns of big data in EdTech: (i) collection of individual information (with their consent, and minimized as much as possible), (ii) choice of anonymity, (iii) surveillance and tracking of information (such as Google’s mobility report), (iv) autonomy of users, (v) due process, and mostly importantly (vi) ownership of data.
Since working as a teacher for a distance-learning program, I consider myself to be (slightly) more aware than most of the limitations for what can & can’t be used as tools for my classes. With that in mind, it is unfortunate that the list of unapproved resources vastly outnumber the approved. Furthermore, even the approved programs may require additional “approval” as educators begin to explore ways to provide education while public schools are closed. Office365 is a great example of how it is similar in functionality compared to Google, whilst being FOIPPA compliant, with all BC students and teachers having a registered account. Yet we’ve now run into issues with using virtual conferencing via Microsoft Teams mayhaps being an inappropriate substitute of face-to-face teaching, given the untested concerns around 1:1 teacher-student interview, expectations around webcam and broadcasting for both parties, or reliable accessibility to internet.
Frankly, at the end of the day, I’d just like them to clarify that our continuity of learning means secondary students do not unconditionally move on to next year.
Regan, P., & Jesse, J. (2019). Ethical challenges of edtech, big data and personalized learning: Twenty-first century student sorting and tracking. Ethics and Information Technology, 21(3), 167-179. DOI: 10.1007/s10676-018-9492-2