Current Issues Relating to the Use of Educational Technology

Current Issues Relating to the Use of Educational Technology

The effective use of technology in schools involves more than the purchase of educational technologies and their integration into the curriculum. The existence of technology within a school can create special concerns–particularly regarding legal issues, ethical issues, media literacy, and funding–that must be addressed.
Legal issues. Software piracy (the installation of nonlicensed software) is an important legal concern. When software is purchased, generally the buyer obtains one license, which allows that software to be installed on only one computer. Schools may purchase site licenses that permit the software to be installed on multiple computer stations. While the practice of loading software without licenses onto multiple computers (piracy) may seem benign to school officials, it is a form of theft that results in billions of dollars in lost revenue to vendors, and it can result in fines to school corporations.
Technology also raises important legal issues regarding copyright and privacy. Technology allows for easy duplication of many types of media. With a videocassette recorder, a teacher can record a television program for reuse in the classroom. Artwork, photos, and articles can be scanned and reproduced digitally. The Internet provides easy access to digital images, movies, music, and written works from all over the world; these can be downloaded and used in multiple formats, raising not only questions about copyright, but also plagiarism.
When a student or a teacher uses a piece of media that is not in the public domain (copyright-free), they must be certain that they have not violated the doctrine of Fair Use. Fair Use (Section 107 of the 1976 Copyright Act) considers the purpose of the use, the nature of the copyrighted work, the amount used in comparison to the entire piece, and the impact of classroom use on the work's commercial value. Therefore, while showing videotape in a classroom to illustrate a point of history may be permissible, the downloading of images from the Internet into a calendar for the student council to sell is probably not.
The right to privacy and free speech is considered an essential American ideal. However, with computer technologies and the Internet, there is little actual privacy. All electronic communications (e-mail, web forums, etc.) pass through multiple computer sites before arriving at a destination. During that process, information is saved that can be read by anyone who has the knowledge to do so. In order to ensure the safety and security of everyone, students and teachers need to be informed that electronic communications from their school are not private and can be accessed. In 2000 Congress passed the Children's Internet Protection Act (CIPA) and the Neighborhood Children's Internet Protection Act (NCIPA), which require all schools and libraries that receive federal technology funds to have an Internet safety policy to protect children from visual depictions that are obscene, contain child pornography, or are otherwise harmful to children. An adequate technology protection measure can be an Internet block or filtering software that prevents the objectionable material from being displayed. However, blocking software and other practices to eliminate access to websites raises issues relating to rights of free speech guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution. The conflict about free speech, privacy, and the obligation of schools to protect children make this issue quite controversial within some school systems.
Ethical issues. Ethical issues often relate to whether schools are providing students with equal access to technology. Gender-equity issues arise when girls are treated differently than boys in terms of the use of, and encouragement to use, technology. Girls tend to enroll in fewer computer classes, spend fewer hours on the computer either at home or at school, and are less likely to choose majors in computer-related fields than do boys. For example, in 2000 only 15 percent of the students who took the Advanced Placement Computer Science exam were girls. There are a number of factors that contribute to this gender difference, including the limited number of female role models in computer-related fields, adults who especially encourage boys to use the computer and computer games, and software that tends to targets boys' interests more than that of girls.
The digital divide is the division that exists between the information rich and the information poor. Advanced technologies, and the Internet in particular, provide easy access to vast amounts of information. Digital inequities can exist along racial, economic, academic achievement (low-achieving versus high-achieving classes), and geographic (rural, urban, and suburban) lines. A student in a rural school that lacks fast Internet connections does not have the same access to information as a student near a major city.
The digital divide also extends beyond the school. More economically advantaged children usually have access to information sources through Internet connections and microcomputers at home. Those who are more disadvantaged must rely upon limited school and public library resources. Minority students may be discouraged from accessing online content because of an absence of exposure to computers in general or because of a lack of racially and ethnically diverse information on the Internet. Finally, computers are often used as a reward for high achieving students, leaving out those students with poorer academic records, while some students are simply not encouraged to use technology to fuel their interest in academics.
Media literacy. Media literacy is the ability to access, evaluate, and produce information. Teachers themselves not only need to be media literate, but they must also ensure that their students are able to access the information they need, are capable of determining the relative merits of the information obtained, and are able to represent the information they have gathered in new ways using the different forms of media available to them (print, video, audio, digital). The concept of media literacy is not unique to computer technology. For decades, child advocates have expressed concern about the impact of movies and television on children and about whether children can distinguish the illusion presented to them from what is real. Media literacy has become an even greater teaching responsibility for educators, as the Internet provides access to vast quantities of information, much of which is inaccurate or represents biased views.
Adequate funding. The Office of Technology Assessment described four barriers to technology integration in instruction: inadequate teacher training, a lack of vision of technology's potential, a lack of time to experiment, and inadequate technical support. Each of these obstacles stems in part from weak or inconsistent financial support for technology. Much of the money used to support technology in schools has been provided through special governmental appropriations or by private funds. Technology funds have rarely become a part of the regular, operating budget of school systems. For technology to achieve its potential, funds are needed to provide adequate training for teachers, to keep equipment repaired and up-to-date, and to provide the time necessary for teachers and administrators to plan ways to use technology effectively. Only then will the schools be able to experience the advantages afforded by technology.