One thing I took from Jesse Miller’s presentation was the idea that technology always has a ‘byproduct’. The example he gave with the captchas really caught me off guard. I had never considered that captchas were being used for any other purpose than ensuring that I wasn’t a robot. That Google could be covertly using this information for another purpose, i.e. to improve self-driving cars, seems brilliant but wrong. To me, consent is essential in all spheres and technology is no different. If our brains are being used for some purpose, I think that at the very least we should be demanding that our ‘agree’ is received prior to engaging. From now on, I will be a lot more wary about what I am giving away to technology and seek with each interaction to discover the hidden by-product. And as a teacher, I will be even more wary, especially when I ask my students to interact with it.
Category: Privacy & Safety
I appreciated the discussion of FIPPA, as I can see the importance of considering how the technology used in classroom activities impacts privacy. As I interact with many new technology tools over the course of this program, I am experiencing an abstract random nature to my clicking of ‘agree’ and ‘allow’ or ‘next’ after inserting my name or email. Even when I try to pay attention to what I am giving away, including attempting to read the pages long explanations, I often still don’t really understand the implications of the ‘agree’ and ‘allow’. In the end, I usually grant access to the various tools to do what they will with my computer and my personal information. I find my decision often goes something like this: if so many people are using this program, how bad can it be that bad? Given recent fiascos about how information has been used and abused, I wonder if this will come back to haunt me one day. I say this as a reminder to myself, to try to dig deep with my students on this issue before I ask them to proceed merrily down the tech access path of ‘allow’, ‘agree’ and ‘insert email’.