Summer 2007

Teachers and Teaching

When politics and technology are not the solution

It is the responsibility of the entire community to protect children and to educate them about the online environment and to give them the skills and support to manage any potential risk. Matthew Warren speaks out.

Neither the Liberal party nor the Labor party fully understand the Internet. The recent discussion about censoring the Internet reflects that lack of understanding. The Internet cannot be controlled from Canberra. The biggest problem that Australia (as all countries) faces is the fact that the Internet is attended to globally and there are no global agreements about its content or control. The Internet contains much positive information but unfortunately it contains a lot of negative information. This information is distributed freely around the world and this is why all governments need to be involved in its control. Governments will need to create the equivalent to the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights, for instance the ‘Universal Declaration of Internet Content’. The Internet’s global nature is reflected by the scourge of child pornography and the deaths caused by Internet suicide chat rooms especially in Japan and South Korea. None of these major issues can be solved by Australia alone taking a stance, it will require global cooperation and global enforcement.

The government cannot expect Australian Internet service providers to track every transaction that they process and we cannot expect NetAlert to solve the problems of the Internet with increased funding or new software filters. The filter was offered free to families earlier this year by the government so they could block black-listed material and protect their children; but the $84 million filter was hacked into by a Melbourne teenager in 30 minutes. The problem is that technological solutions cannot solve all problems of Internet protection and this case shows how technology can be bypassed and how filters cannot offer 100 per cent protection. There have to be alternatives to technical solutions.

New measures needed

The political parties should look at new methods to protect the Internet, measures that could be adopted could include:

• global cooperation to remove pornography
• teaching computer ethics in school—to establish standards for young people about acceptable behaviour on the Internet
• increased funding for bodies such as NetAlert to give up to date advice about the risks of Internet content
• ongoing funding for non-technical protection initiatives including awareness campaigns
• parents educating themselves about the problems associated with the Internet.

The role of schools

Schools have a major role in protecting young people against the dangers of the Internet by teaching computer ethics. Computer ethics is a set of moral principles that govern the behaviour of a group or individuals in relation to technology and in this instance in relation to the Internet. A major problem is the way that computer ethics should be taught: a computer ethics unit by itself would be very dull to young people and they could view computer ethics in a negative manner.

A more effective way to teach computer ethics is to embed aspects in other subjects. In the UK, several schools teach citizenship studies, teaching about appropriate behaviour as an adult; computer ethics could be linked to subjects or discussions relating to this appropriate behaviour. Young people could also keep reflective diaries about their experiences on the Internet and these could be used a tool as part of classroom discussions.

Computer ethics

One of the challenges that society faces is that young people are now brought up with easy access to the Internet, they chat socially, they have personal blogs, they download music and movies from the Internet, they exist in virtual worlds such as Second Life. The problem is that young people may have greater knowledge of technology than their parents or teachers—this poses unique issues.

It is important that computer ethics should be taught at all levels of education: students could be taught about the issues of chatting online, information they should not share online, the problems of cyber bullying and how to deal with this issue and the ethical problems of piracy and hacking.

By teaching computer ethics at all schools it will help to establish standards for young people about acceptable behaviour on the Internet. These personal standards will help them in all aspects of their adult life.

Within Australia, parents should be very concerned about young people using the Internet, the type of information that they can view, as well as the type of people who may contact them via this medium. But parents have the ability to do something about it by raising awareness with their children about appropriate Internet behaviour, and by becoming informed about what they are using the Internet for.

The government would be better placed ensuring that computer ethics is taught to young people, this could be a low cost solution to a massive problem. A technology solution to controlling the Internet simply cannot succeed. As a society we have to accept that the Internet will be with us forever and it is going to pose many social problems for Australian society as a whole, and in particular the young people of Australia.

Matthew Warren is the head of school and a professor in the School of Information Systems, Deakin University, Melbourne.

The author owns the copyright in this article. For information related to the reuse of this work in any form please contact the publisher denise.quinn@curriculum.edu.au