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Introduction

Lesson Plan

 Scenarios

 Student Handouts

Just the Facts, Ma'am (pdf)

 Whodunit Investigation Sheet (pdf)

Instant Messaging Log (pdf)

What's Up with That? Exercise Sheet (pdf)

 Student Primers

Surfing or Surveillance? (pdf)

Techno-tonomy - What is Privacy? (pdf)

The Law and Privacy (pdf)

Techno-tonomy

Privacy Textbook 

Other Resources

Introduction

 

Why Privacy Education?

  

Canadian kids are among the most wired in the world.  And although they use the Internet for schoolwork – preferring the Net over the library by a factor of 10 to 1 – they see it as much more than a tool for learning. For kids, the Internet is one of the most powerful ways to stay connected to each other and to make new friends. In fact, they like the Net precisely because it gives them the privacy they want –  from parents, teachers and family members – to connect with peers, try on new identities and explore social roles2.

94 % of Canadian students have Internet access at home, and the majority of them (61%) have a highspeed connection1.

(Media Awareness Network, 2005)

From an adult perspective, the Internet is the least private of spaces.  Whether a young person is chatting on MSN or posting an invitation to a party on their blog, adults know that others can capture that information and use it for their own purposes.

Supervision can help kids navigate online obstacles to privacy, but research indicates that kids who use the Net for social communication the most are still going to give out personal information, whether or not they are supervised3.  Technical fixes, like software that captures children’s key strokes or records their online conversations, have their own problems. Davis argues that these types of surveillance tools may interfere with the learning process4. They are also out of step with what kids know about the Internet – it’s a great place to connect with friends and extend their social network.  Telling kids never to give out personal information online is therefore out of touch with their daily experiences.

To discern and to ‘own’ appropriate connections and justifications requires a certain kind of ‘privacy’ from the teacher. That is, the teacher, as authoritative source of knowledge, needs to be distanced in some measure from the processes through which this discernment and ownership is acquired. In some measure the teacher must lack detailed access to the child’s thinking processes, at least for some of the time, and the child must be aware that the teacher lacks this access4.

(Davis, 2001)

In these circumstances, it is critical that we teach young people how networked technologies change their experience of privacy, so they can better manage their online social interactions and get the full benefit of the Internet. This module seeks to meet this need, by encouraging young people to think more deeply about the relationship between privacy, anonymity and identity in a networked world.

Sources:
  1. Media Awareness Network, “Young Canadians in a Wired World: Phase II Student Survey,” 2005.
  2. Media Awareness Network, “Young Canadians in a Wired World: Phase II Trends and Recommendations,” 2005.
  3. Valerie Steeves & Cheryl Webster, “Closing the Barn Door: The Effect of Parental Supervision on Canadian Children’s Online Privacy,” Bulletin of Science, Technology & Society, 2008.
  4. Andrew Davis, “Do Children Have Privacy Rights in the Classroom?,” Studies in Philosophy and Education, 200