Technology should be a tool for
good to help broaden our ability to teach and learn in the classroom. Often this is the case with many revolutionary
software that help to speed up the process of assignments, having more
knowledge accessible to a greater number of people, and having easier and
faster ways to communicate with people. Naturally
like most good things people can misuse technology and do harm instead of
good. Below are different articles that
I have read that shows examples of when this is the case and how teachers lost
their jobs because of it.
Three ways to lose your job with
the use of technology
- Don’t have relationships with your students
- Be smart of what you say on Facebook
- Don’t show explicit content
- Article one: the illegal relationships between teacher
and student
My initial reaction to this article
was to find a trash can and throw up. I
mean seriously this is the kind of thing you never want to hear about, and when
you do hear about it you wish it was left to the imagination. The article talks about Teachers using snapchat
to send provocative pictures and messages to their students. It goes on further to talk about how the
teachers had physical and intimate relations with their students. Again, I have to say this, gross. It should be common sense to not do this for
about a dozen of reasons. But if you are sitting reading what I am
saying feeling that you might be at risk to due to something similar there is
an easy way to solve this issue. Don’t follow
your students when it comes to social media or let them follow you. If you don’t have this kind of personal insight
into their lives and this type of communication, then you will be safe from
being fired and potential lawsuits.
- Article two: Don’t insult the parents of your
students
My
initial reaction to this article was laughing at the stupidity of the teacher. I mean seriously what made this teacher feel
like it was a good idea to publicly state that her students were “germ bags” and
the parents “snobby” and “arrogant”.
Obviously with complaining from the parents this wasn’t going to
fly. It paints a bad picture for the
school. The article goes on to talk
about the teacher public apologizing about what she wrote. Also, the article talks about being careful
of what you say due to the fact your employers want you to “control your online
image”. Which in all honesty makes sense,
and isn’t a very complicated thing to do. The article then continues to talk about
how this idea of a controlled issue is everywhere and not in just schools. So, in short, for your own protection and job
security be smart with what you post publicly, keep hurtful comments to yourself
or someone disclosed to secrecy, like a therapist.
- Showing explicit content isn’t a smart thing to
do
I wouldn’t think this is something that has to be
said but I guess it happens more than you think it would. So, for anyone reading this, do your self a
favor and keep the classroom PG-13 and lower.
Showing explicit content has led to the firing of multiple
teachers. The fact of if you think it is
morally acceptable or not is really not relevant in this case. Also, parental consent is extremely important. It is better to be overly cautious then to not
be and get in trouble or in this case fired because of it. The teacher in this article got fired for
this exact reason. Do yourself a favor
and learn from the mistakes made by the teachers in this article and don’t let
this be you.
Technology is a useful tool that
can help spread knowledge in exciting new ways but be smart with how you use
it. I hope for anyone reading this they
already knew that this was not appropriate behavior as a teacher and that this
could lead you in almost every case to be fired. For your own sake, and I can’t emphasize this
enough, be smart and if a gut feeling something tells you that what you are doing
is a bad idea, trust that feeling. This
way one day people don’t read an article about you and your misused technology that
led to your termination.