Google in Court

Herold, B. (2014, March 13). Google under fire for data-mining student email messages. Education Week Online. Retrieved from http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2014/03/13/26google.h33.html

I work at a “Google Apps for Education” school. I use Google Documents with students and colleagues every day; I use Gmail all of the time. In that regard, I am biting the hand that feeds me. However, any school using Google’s suite of apps ought to pay close attention to this article, which carefully delineates the case against Google heard this spring in Federal court. Quite honestly, it also explains the numerous spam emails my seventh eighth grade students receive through their school Gmail accounts. It’s a powerful reminder of the adage, “when you’re receiving a free service, you are not the customer.”

Herold delineates the suit brought by nine different plaintiffs against Google; Google admits to data-mining student email messages for marketing purposes. Google also created profiles using this data for the purpose of targeted marketing. Data mining potentially violates Federal laws prohibiting unwarranted wiretaps; at issue is whether Google’s admission that it “scans” student emails for targeted advertising violates this law. Herold offers examples of how districts and universities are responding, as even schools that opt out of advertising are subject to Google’s scanning of all correspondence. Notably, he cited the University of Alaska’s “Google mail FAQ’s” publication that alerts students to the fact that keyword scanning will be used.

This article provides essential background not only for school and district staff members, but also for students who are either Gmail users or involved in any kind of digital citizenship education. 

Updating Those Acceptable Use Policies

Jessica King

Chaplin, H. (2012, April 6). Welcoming mobile: More districts are rewriting acceptable use policies, embracing smartphone and social media in schools. Spotlight On. Retrieved from http://spotlight.macfound.org/featured-stories/entry/welcoming-mobile-rewriting-acceptable-use-smartphones-and-social-media/

            Chaplin supplies a thorough examination of the initial thoughts and fears surrounding the Web, the growing use of the Internet, the impact CIPA had (and is still having), and how that has shaped current views of Internet use in schools. She acknowledges that perceptions of the immediate dangers the web poses are changing but caution should still be used. These changing views and the increasing usage of technology in and out of school needs to be addressed in updated Acceptable Use Policies (AUPs). To emphasize her points she pulls from multiple examples of how schools are bringing technology and the Web into the their daily teaching activities.  

            Many schools are now allowing increased amount of Internet use in their schools but they will not be prepared for challenges that may arise because their AUP is outdated. The AUP is not just there for schools to use in case upset parents approach about their child coming across something ‘inappropriate.’ Chaplin (2012) asserts, “schools ought to be providing safe environments for students to learn how to be responsible digital citizens.” This is absolutely true, the filters mandated by CIPA were not meant to keep students from everything the Internet has to offer forever and part of the mandate was that the schools teach students digital citizenship skills. The AUP needs to reflect this dedication to students learning these skills and understanding their responsibility when it comes to using this tool. 

Kathryn Whitehouse

Luhtala, M., Svec, D. (2012). A tale of two students. Why acceptable use policies make such a difference. American Libraries 41, ⅞. p.48.

     Luthala and Svec provide an A/B comparison of the high school experience for a student who benefits from a school with a progressive policy of open access to wifi and internet based content, and a school that bans devices and imposes significant firewalls that deprive students and educators of utilizing social media, blogging and micro blogging, video and photo uploading, and collaborative projects. Not only is there no investment in tools tailored for educational settings, even free tools such as Skype, Google+, Facebook, and Twitter are forbidden. So what is the result? The savvy student has received an education in digital citizenship, is practiced in information seeking and gathering tools utilized in the real world and at universities, and has created a responsible digital persona. The other student, deprived of all access, is at considerable disadvantage in the college admissions process, and is less equipped to be an effective and independent seeker of information in college and in the job market.

     The authors say “access to learning is an intellectual freedom issue, and many schools are denying students access to critical modern day learning tools.” I would clarify or even expand that point and say this lack of access represents inequitable access to basic information. To me, it is no different from offering library books that are useless, dirty, inaccurate, superseded, and irrelevant to the curriculum while not investing in new titles. 

     Sadly, both circumstances are chronically evident in my children's school district. If you have experience in successfully convincing your IT administrators that your post graduate degrees in information science does in fact qualify you to determine what level of internet access you can administer on behalf of your students, I would enjoy reading of your success could learn from you.