It is rather startling how little some educators know about internet privacy. Morris and Stommel (2018) address their concerns in regards to a plagiarism detection software called Turnitin, suggesting that the software is stealing information from students within universities. They claim that Turnitin preys on educational institutions that are not critically thinking about the software they are using within their facilities. I am personally not surprised by this claim considering that many educators that I know have not had any training in the area of internet privacy. As an educator who has just completed a four-year degree in elementary education this past April, I too have had no training in this area. In my opinion, this means that our knowledge is limited, therefore our student’s privacy will continue to be violated until we have the proper knowledge in regards to how to store information safely on the internet. Luckily enough, this course is already helping me to become more knowledgeable in the area of protecting our privacy on the internet. The very fact that a course such as this is offered as an accredited course for my program means that we are moving towards becoming more aware of our internet privacy.
As an individual who loves a good TedTalk, I found the video “Tracking Our Online Trackers” by Gary Kovacs, to be intriguing in terms of how it can help viewers to visualize behavioral tracking by using a software called Collusion. After watching the video, I felt a sense of helplessness in terms of having the ability to keep any of my browsing information private, seeing as though the websites that I am not even navigating to have the ability to track my information. I already knew this was possible but wasn’t aware of how many websites were doing this. Despite this feeling of helplessness, it did remind me of the importance of teaching my students about confirmation bias from a very young age. It is very easy to be trapped inside your own perspective when companies who are tracking your browser activity are usually doing so in order to market to you. Companies tend to keep feeding people similar advertisements based on their current preferences in order to get people to purchase more of their products. Not only is this dangerous for adults, but I would argue it is even more dangerous for children because they are just at the beginning of learning what their perspectives and preferences are. I worry that this will lead to a close-minded outlook on the world in addition to being less tolerant of people who don’t share similar perspectives. With that being said, it is us to help students become aware of confirmation bias.
References
Morris, S. M., & Stommel, J. (2018). An urgency of teachers: The work of critical digital pedagogy. United States: Hybrid Pedagogy.