My pod decided to inquire about Google Classroom.

My role was to investigate the drawbacks

Fippa was the focus of my investigation

I found this document which was incredibly insightful

In class we talked about the drama of cloud storage and the problem concerning where and why our data is stored. This is an issue but Fippa seems most concerned with consent specifically with the lack of informed consent from teachers and students. Fippa is unhappy not only with the contracts school districts are agreeing to (not negotiating) but mainly with how the end-users (teachers, students, parents) are not taking part in the agreements and do not know what they are agreeing to by simply just logging on.

Another interesting thing was that as google becomes more integrated into school districts (which they accomplish through grants and free trials) it becomes less likely for accomodation to be provided for students and families who do not agree with the terms and conditions (which are obscured to begin with)

I was shocked by the amount of information google has access to and tracks. School districts gain consent by telling students its only for educational purposes however there is no definition of that. If a student searches something, watches a youtube video, looks at a map even for entertainment purposes or otherwise google has that information and considers it educational.

One reason it is considered educational is because the school district and teacher are considered by google to be supervising its use. However Fippa notes that teachers are not trained on how they and their students should or shouldn’t be using their google learn accounts

if a student wants a 10 minute brain break to browse or watch YouTube what would you say? is that educational?

one of my favourite essential questions was:

If our (teachers) benefit of using google classroom outweighs theirs (students) and their risks as minors outweigh ours should we use it? why are we still using it?

This is my slide from the presentation (I created it using Canva)

Here is a screen cast briefly explaining everyone else’s parts:

This is where Assignment 2: Educational Technology Resource Development will be presented when complete.