If you use something, cite it!

Some salty language at the end if you scroll down, but it makes a good point. Original source here.

Facebook Perils: Article summary and comment

Facebook relates to the specific composition objectives of developing the awareness and understanding of voice and audience. LaRoche and Flanigan (2009) note that students enter college and work discourse communities with unrealistic expectations regarding their rights to free speech, and they fail to recognize what constitutes private versus public expression.

Many students assume that The First Amendment protects their right to free speech and by extension protects them from punishment for posting their social life online. This assumption is false….Facebook pages are often created and maintained without considering the potential audience or appropriateness of the postings. (p. 31).

LaRoche and Flanigan surveyed 118 undergraduate students and 45 employers to assess their tendencies and values. Their research presented images from alleged Facebook posts and, perhaps not surprisingly, found significant differences in what employers and students found appropriate or offensive. Additionally the researchers note:

• Intentionally or by accident, Facebook users tend to make public their private lives
• Government and law enforcement have full access to all Facebook accounts
• Campus police sometimes crack down on drinking and student behavior by watching the site.
• Postings have been used to expel students
• Over 20% of students will add any person who seeks to friend them.
• Some colleges ban athletes from Facebook.

Many of these points may come as a surprise to students. The researchers conclude that while students at public institutions may have the right to free speech, that right offers no protection from suffering the consequences of that expression.

It might be easiest to ban Facebook, but doing so would preclude instructor presence in teachable moments. This is where students are (96% of students surveyed in this research, and none of the dozens of surveys published in the last 3-4 years have shown fewer than 85%). The recent incident involving student use of facebook illustrates a need, and this need iswithin the student learning outcomes defined by the college, specifically

• to collaborate respectfully with others,
• to communicate effectively (and that requires audience awareness),
• to demonstrate an understanding of the broad diversity of the human experience and the individual’s place in society.
• Use technology efficiently and responsibly.

In Chinese, a word for crisis (危機) combines two radicals, the first means danger, and the second means opportunity. All learning comes with risk; we can't teach a constructivist model of knowledge and give students the sort of experience that Dewey deemed sine qua non of learning by hiding from potential dangers.

Work Cited

LaRoche, C.R. and Flanigan, M.A. (2009) “Facebook: Perils, Perceptions and Precautions.” The Journal of College Teaching & Learning, 6(5), 31-38

facebook ethics: JCCC in the news

Last Nov. 10 (2010) a group of nursing students took a photograph of a human placenta while they were in class on a field trip/ clinical.

You'll have to read the summary yourself at KC Star and The Pitch. Long story short: photos were taken, and at least one person posted a snap to Facebook, which lead to 5 students' dismissal from the nursing program and JCCC. According to The Star in the above link, a judge has weighed in on the side of the student, but it seems far from over. The Pitch laid out her dilemma with customary wit:

Unfortunately, "[She] has scheduled an August 12, 2011 wedding in Virginia and has declared her intent to reside in Virginia with her husband next fall and therefore will be unable to resume her education at JCCC at that time," the lawsuit states.

It might be of small consolation to [her], but if she's forced to rearrange her wedding plans, it won't be the first time that matrimony is thwarted by a placenta.

The student pictured at the right claims that if you Google "placenta" now she (and the infamous picture) pops up at the top of the list (she's 4th now - the link above does it for you). This story has nationwide if not world wide traction and will likely affect her future regardless of how her relationship with the school plays out. The medical community and college communities in general follow these developments with rapt attention.

See the JCCC press release here, and check out the Nursing Department Facebook page here. The Wall Street Journal has also covered this in detail. A young nurse speaks for a generation who has grown up saturated with Facebook here (key words: silly, unaware of consequences).

Academic integrity and plagiarism

Lot in the news now about the moral depravity of students as evidenced by "cheating." The Philosophy Monkey treats it well. I like that he makes a point that instructors aren't as stupid as student's might think (with a video of an instructor calling his students on cheating), but any suppositions that there is a generational component are undercut by the current discussion of former President Bush's alleged plaigiarism of his own memoirs. See Christian Science Monitor, which cites Huffington Post. The embedded image is from Doone'sbury at Slate on 11-18-10 @ 10 am, that site has been running quotes from Bush's memoir with other sources. Yesterday's example was nearly identical- but I didn't do a screengrab.

I question that the ethics of our students are much different from that of our leaders, and therefore the issue is one of our culture as a whole rather than kids today; however, many readers of the article "Cheating and the Generational Divide" in Inside Higher Education may disagree. Prior to a test students researched online for publisher created tests - and the instructor used the test provided by the publisher. Some students claim the instructor said in class he would create his own test. I need to someday read this more carefully - but I gotta get ready for class.

I hope a student chooses plagiarism or ethics for an inquiry-learning research project. I'd like to hear a balanced and logical discussion of the issue.