Digital Citizenship: Ethics and privacy
In the digital world, we can lose control of the information we share. It’s important to respect other people’s privacy and take control of your own.
In the digital world, we can lose control of the information we share. It’s important to respect other people’s privacy and take control of your own.
It’s that time of year again when parents (and kids) are either counting down the days until school begins, or feeling a sense of overwhelming worry that the summer hasn’t lasted long enough. Admittedly, I’m in the latter category. However, our family has begun to prepare for the new school year.
With the summer upon us, a lot of families will have recently spent time celebrating the end of the school year – and in some cases there were also graduation celebrations!
Being able to see our kids enjoy these special moments seems particularly poignant given how difficult, and at times isolating, the last few years have been for these students and families.
They say the future comes when you aren’t looking. This Media Literacy Week, we are reflecting on how the pandemic has changed how we interact with media and each other. Certainly a few years ago, not many of us could have imagined we’d be spending a fair portion of our lives doing video chats, which were considered obsolete and mostly reserved for keeping in touch with friends and family far away.
In this lesson, students draw connections between their existing concepts of privacy and how it applies to the internet and networked devices, then learn essential vocabulary relating to privacy. They then consider some scenarios in which children encounter privacy risks and draw on those to develop a list of “dos” and “don’ts” for using networked devices.
In this lesson, students review what the word “privacy” means in an online context and learn key privacy-related vocabulary. They explore different privacy risks and then learn practical techniques and strategies to manage and protect their privacy. Students then demonstrate their understanding of these strategies by illustrating them. Finally, students revisit material from earlier in the lesson and consider how their actions might put other people’s privacy at risk.
In this lesson, students learn how their personal information is key to how most of the “free” apps and platforms they use make money. They learn practical strategies and tools for managing their privacy and plan how these can be used to limit what audiences have access to their personal information.
This blog was written by Samantha McAleese and three youth participants – Sahil, Erin, and Kate (pseudonyms used to maintain anonymity).
Reflections on Conducting Qualitative Research During a Pandemic
What comes to mind when you hear the word algorithm? Can you explain how machine learning works? Do you have any privacy or data collection concerns regarding the increased reliance on artificial intelligence? These are just a few of the questions that we asked young people in our recent qualitative research project Algorithmic Awareness: Conversations with Young Canadians about Artificial Intelligence and Privacy. From November 2020 to January 2021, we facilitated eight focus groups with 22 youth ages 13 to 17, where we combined game-based learning with discussion and reflection to gain insight into how young Canadians understand the relationship between artificial intelligence, algorithms, and privacy.
When I started to notice the headlines that the final episode of the popular PBS children’s cartoon Arthur was soon to be airing, I couldn’t help but be slightly overcome with emotion.