Ethics in the Web
I thought that the nature of the question asked prepared me for the wave of different issues and viewpoints presented by students, but the variety of posts surprised me once again.
At that point during the module everyone seems to have a deeper awareness of the issues and possibilities created by massive use of the Internet. However, the way in which one used this information in order to identify and describe ethical issues surprised me. I have learned a lot by reading posts, describing issues such as the problem of big data gathering and targeted advertisement, ethical issues in the workplace, or a very interesting attempt to popularise the issue among Internet users – “before you write, THINK”.
There were, however, two posts that really challenged my thought and gave a lot of interesting information.
Firstly, Andrew wrote about the problem of Identity Theft. Before reading his post, I had a rough idea what this term means, but his post convinced me that it is not only about stealing someone’s address in order to borrow money in his name, but also the issue touches re-use of someone’s pictures or name online. Bearing in mind number of websites and shared data, the concern about who (and how) uses our photographs is only going to become more scary.
Secondly, Zia wrote about the ethical issues associated with using social media in education. I think he correctly presented number of ways the social media may transform our learning habits by linking popular online courses (MOOCs) to the collective intelligence, created by student’s use of social media. Indeed, such innovation demands a lot of changes to the education systems, but if conducted properly, can benefit students.
My comments:
On Andrew’s Blog
On Zia’s Blog
