Online Privacy: Does It Exist??

Teaching about digital citizenship is an ongoing necessary component in a digital classroom. It is easy to assume that students know what is appropriate and what is inappropriate to discuss in a digital world. However, it is apparent as I become more submerged into the digital world, that all students do not know what is appropriate and they need to be taught. This became apparent when our class began to converse with our new grade 12 buddies in our group's shared wiki discussion forum. I assumed that students would stick to general topics of conversation to get to know their new buddies. i.e. interests, hobbies, school subjects most enjoyed, MI strengths,etc., so that the students could find commonalities. I assumed that they would stick to topics and treat the forum as if they were actually meeting their buddies face to face. However, I didn't take into account the anonymity that chatting online provided. Students who are introverted and shy are able to express themselves more freely when they are not seen. I believe that students saw this forum as a way of making a new friend with an older student and a way to share confidences. What I did not teach the students was that sharing information of a personal nature is not appropriate when meeting someone for the first time and that in a forum like a discussion wiki, all conversations are open for perusal. Students sharing deeply personal information, made it clear that they were not aware of the risks of divulging personal information online and that they are in dire need of learning online "net"iquette. I believe that online privacy doesn't exist and students need to be aware that conversations can be tracked by online observers. In the future,before having the students be part of an online discussion group, I will make certain that they understand what are appropriate conversations to have online and the risks involved when conversing online. I will be starting a unit on digital citizenship that will address the issues of online privacy and internet safety. It will be interesting to learn what the students' assumptions are about these two topics.