1. A school’s duty of care for students to whom it gives access tocyberspace: Data in (Content Regulation) and Data Out (Privacy). Graham Bassett
2. Students have a digital persona. This comprises of data that comes into them and data that goes out about them during any login session. Incoming data is subject to content regulation and data out is subject to privacy legislation.
3. Educational Thought In Meatspace Her educational thinking involves three processes First, the user acquires data The second stage, the child’s thought involves recall, analysis and selection of information Thirdly, the child produces output - an essay, a verbal presentation to the class. This meatspace rendering of her thought has a limited audience and is clearly associated with her identity. The author defines the term ‘meatspace’ as the present everyday real world (opposed to cyberspace)
4. Cyberspace Defined Cyberspace enhances the capacity for interactive thinking. Catching a bus to school would now be ‘logging on’ to an internet educational site It’s what we know to be the ‘online world’
5. Legal Tensions in the school A common problem is that although the internet can be a source of intellectual freedom and a form of education without boundaries though in the school setting it presents onerous liability to their students.
6. Finding a balance? “So I over protect and then relax the rules when they are found restrictive, this is the way I would want my children treated (if they were still at school). Ultimately no-ones rights are infringed and all can have access to sites that are genuinely needed for educational purposes...”
7. Duty of Care to take such measures as in all the circumstances were reasonable to prevent physical injury to students”. prevent injury that ought to have been reasonably foreseen. But who can foresee the unexpected? E.g. A boy getting kicked in the head during recess? A child struck with a hockey stick to the head while playing during sport?
8. Where does duty of care stop? It is not just a 9-5 responsibility Online homework School Content Vs Public Content (i.e. defamation) Unable to prevent?
9. E.g. In relation to defaming comments made on a e-learning web site: “Students and teachers are insulted every day. It is part of that real world experience that we all remember from our childhood.”But in cyberspace the stressor is ongoing, has a vast audience and cannot be removed until websites complies with a request to take it down. i.e. The school (at best) can only respond after the event and it will be judged on this
10. Prevention better than a cure Websites used for e-learning need to be scrupulously checked for appropriateness prior to promotion E-safety must be taught directly Consider school packages opposed to student self logons (i.e. Edublogs where teacher has full control such as comment authorizing)
11. Future? Just like the ‘meatspace’, issues will always exist Education on e-safety is vital and there is much work to be done. Schools need to apply a comprehensive program in caring for students in cyberspace.
