Teaching Ethics and Social Issues in the World of

Web 2.0: Raising awareness of the

dark side of the force

By Per A. Godejord, Cand.Polit.,

Decanus, Faculty of Scientific Subjects,
Nesna University College, Norway.

ABSTRACT

This paper describes a unique, educational project that was implemented in both the
undergraduate study of Computer Science, and within the e-learning study “ICT and
Learning” for Teacher education students, at Nesna University College in 2002/2003. The
project lasted for nearly eight years before being discontinued in 2010. Nesna University
College used the example of sexual abuse of children in case study teaching in Social
Informatics for Teacher education students and Computer Science Students, in order to create
an environment for intrinsically motivated learning, as well as rising the students awareness
of the darker sides of Internet. The project gave the students a unique opportunity to get
involved both emotionally and practically in the field of ICT and Society. The project was run
in cooperation with Save the Children Norway and the Norwegian National Crime Squad. The
Computer Science education at Nesna University College was the only Computer Science
education in the world which had sexual abuse of children as the main topic on the Computer
Science curriculum. The Computer Science- and Teacher education students provide both the
Save the Children Norway and the National Criminal Investigation Service with reports on
various topics such as secure chat, camera phones and possible abuse, Freenet as a tool for
sexual abuse, how to create awareness of safe behaviour online for both children and their
parents, etc.

KEYWORDS
Ethical/Societal Issues, Pedagogy, Social Informatics, didactics, WEB 2.0.
You don’t know the power of the dark side
- Darth Vader

INTRODUCTION

The last decade has seen a rapid development and growth in the use of computer-based
communication and information sharing. Internet or “the Net” as it’s sometimes called, has
proven to be perhaps the most popular mass communication medium in the world. As with the
phone and the television most of the society has readily adopted the technology, and its spread
internationally and its penetration into almost every corner of the educational system and
family life, as well as work, is often described as a "revolution”. As one of the first countries
outside the United States to be connected to the ARPANET, Norway has quickly developed
its use of Internet from a purely researchers tool to being second on the list of European
countries where Internet is used daily by its population. Children and young people, in
particular, have readily embraced the new communication medium and they utilize it in quite
a number of ways. A wide array of digital tools is enabling kids to express themselves, to
create their own identities, and to personalize the media they use. Their creativity seems
limitless and includes such various forms as mp3 lists, online game characters, digital movies,
and blogs. Just take a look at www.youtube.com and see how kids place themselves in full
view of the whole world, or check web sites like the Norwegian “www.deiligst.no”
(Delicious. no), where teenage girls and boys asks to be evaluated by their peers on their
looks and bodies. Also blogging is all the rage and writing your inner most thoughts online
instead of in the old diary book, might seem quite fun.

The problem with blogging is that children reveal more online than parents know, and they do
it because they think that blogs are only read by their friends. No one ever told them that
everything placed on the Net is visible for everyone. There are also similar problems with
YouTube and sites like “Deiligst.no”.

Children’s creativity is something that should be supported, but also directed. But who`s
going to do it? The obvious answer is the parents, with the support of teachers. But if they are
going to be able to do so, both parents and teachers have to learn how to navigate in the
digital media world of our kids. And they have to be made aware of the power of the dark side
of Internet.

This paper describes how such a serious and disturbing topic as sexual abuse of children
online, was used in order to create knowledge and awareness of how various online tools for
communication and expression of personal identity could be used for criminal intent. While
the project described in this paper also was used within the Computer Science education, the
main focus in this paper is on the use of this project in the online study of “ICT and Learning
for Teachers”, and the course within this study called “ICT in society and work life
(ITL103)”. The main group of students in this course were teacher education students, and
teachers taking this study as part of their continuous education.
THE DARK SIDE OF THE FORCE

Web 2.0 is about a number of positive things, where dialogue and interaction is at the centre,
and words such as creativity, sharing and collaboration are frequently used. But all these
positive terms might conceal quite a dark and sinister negative opposite.

Young people are endless in their creative use of various online tools, especially when it
comes to exposing themselves to the world. Most popular are putting pictures of themselves
online for others to see. Some pictures are innocent enough, but in some instances the picture
meant to create self-esteem in a young girl willingly exposing her half naked body for other
peers to evaluate on a scale from one to ten, might later be downloaded and used in a
collection of child pornography. The picture showing innocent flirtations at a party might later
be assessed by a future employer as showing lack of character and thus denying a young
person the possibility for a specific employment.

Sharing is another important reason for using Web 2.0 tools, and while a young girls sharing
of her picture, home address and mobile phone number where only meant to reach her friends,
they might easily also reach a sex offender looking for a new victim. Making music, movies,
computer games and tools available to others are also reasons for utilizing various online
tools. A young person might not necessarily think much about the ethical and legal aspects of
such activities, but the entertainment industry’s hunt for file sharers might quickly create
serious problems for not only the kid doing the sharing, but also his parents or the school
where he stored the files in his home domain on the classroom computer.

The ability to communicate with the whole world is one of many fascinating aspects with
Internet. The challenge for those entering chat rooms or other tools for communication is to
be sure to whom they communicate. A 12 year old girl thinking she has met a nice new friend
of her own age online, might suddenly find herself confronted by a grown up paedophile.

Web 2.0 is especially hailed as a system for collaborating and young people make ample use
of it, collaborating in order to construct instances of mindless violence where an innocent
victim is beaten by one set of youngsters while another using his or hers mobile phone is
filming it for later uploading and sharing on YouTube.

Does these various examples of misuse of Web 2.0 tools mean that Web 2.0 is bad, or that the
use of Internet is dangerous? Of course not. What it shows are that young people using
Internet might easily be both victims and perpetrators.

Web 2.0 as a tool it is neutral. It`s use may be both good and bad, depending on the person
using it. The ethical, legal, entertaining and academic use of Internet as such, and Web 2.0 in
particular, is a matter of educating young people. And the best way to ensure such education
is to create understanding, knowledge and awareness of the darker sides to Internet in those
who are to teach our kids, or in those who in other ways are such situated as to be able to
increase awareness of ethical issues of ICT in others.

One way of doing this is to design a project based learning environment, utilising the very
tools that might lead to destruction in order to ensure intrinsic motivation towards learning
about social issues concerning the use of information technology.
You can drink from a carafe if you grip its neck and press it to your lips. But if you wish to
drink from a spring, you must go on your knees and bow your head
- Cyprian Kamil Norwid

USING A TRUE PROJECT AS A TOOL FOR TEACHING ETHICAL ISSUES

In order to ensure deep learning the lecturer has to get to the students hearts and minds, but
equally important is the students own will to build new knowledge. Sometimes the urge to
build new knowledge comes naturally, but at other times it has to be brought to life through
various means that places the learner in a proper mood for knowledge creation. Creating new
knowledge involves, among other things, the will to strive towards a higher order thinking. In
the words of the late Norwegian philosopher, professor Arne Næss sr., “thinking hurts”, and
the student cannot stay within his or hers predefined notions of what is true or false, possible
or impossible, or the right way or wrong way of doing a specific thing, if the goal is to create
knowledge.

At Nesna University College we decided to introducing a true project, with real world tasks,
called “Project Getting Involved”. We wanted to encourage the use of higher order thinking
skills and learning concepts by the students, and enabling them to analyse, make synthesis,
and evaluate and thereby reach the highest level of Blooms taxonomy within the specific field
of Social Informatics for Teacher Education (ITL103) and Social Informatics for Computer
Science Students (INF107). A project-based approach also facilitates performance-based
instructions and helps the students being responsible for their own learning.

The main focus of “Project Getting Involved” was to try to fight the constant sexual abuse of
children on the Internet with information and awareness projects directed both towards the
computer students of Nesna University College and towards the local computer industry and
local primary, secondary, and upper secondary level schools. A secondary focus was to get
the students more involved in the various topics within social informatics, especial ethical
topics, by using project based teaching. Our hope was that using this teaching method would
liberate the students from their preconceived notion that social informatics is tedious and not
practical, and that ethical themes are of no importance to a computer professional.

Information and computer technology has traditionally been conceived as a course closely
connected to the natural and logical/mathematical sciences. Social informatics deviates from
this point of view, and the late Dr. Rob Kling of Indiana University gave the following
definition: “Social Informatics (SI) refers to the body of research and study that examines
social aspects of computerization—including the roles of information technology in social and
organizational change, the uses of information technologies in social contexts, and the ways
that the social organization of information technologies is influenced by social forces and
social practices.” (Kling, 2001)
Via the project the main topics were then developed into several smaller topics. The example
of sexual abuse of children and the Internet was the glue that kept all the topics in social
informatics together. The Computer Science students worked with different cases ranging
from computer forensics to problems concerning the introduction of information and
computer technology (ICT) in an organization, privacy legislation versus penal legislation and
the different tasks performed by the Administrative Computing Services within an
organization. The teacher education students looked on various ways of teaching safe online
conduct in children or create awareness of the various danger online in both parents, other
teachers and children. While all the different cases were linked to the project, the main work
consisted of writing reports at the request of Save the Children Norway (Teacher Education
and Computer Science students) or the police (Computer Science students).

For the Teacher education students there were no lectures in real life since their course was
purely online, so lectures were presented not only as ordinary web based lectures, but also as
YouTube videos, mp3 files and a mixture of text and embedded sound and video in blogs.
The use of such Web 2.0 tools also gave the students an insight into the various tools, and
thereby made them more aware also of how these tools might be used for criminal purposes.

In the beginning, the project was first and foremost connected to the Computer Science course
in social informatics (INF107), and it was primarily the ideas from Dr. Rob Kling, Professor
Chuck Huff (St. Olaf College) and Dr. Tom Jewett (California State University, Long Beach)
that provided the framework for the project.

There are different ideas about what kind of knowledge the students in social informatics
should acquire from completing this course, but I decided to formulate a set of goals based on
the ideas of Dr. Rob Kling and Dr. Tom Jewett (Jewett & Kling, 1996), which used Bloom’s
taxonomy as a guide. Their views are that teachers in social informatics should try to anchor
the professional and ethical focus of their courses to the immediate future of the students. The
most important focus should be to help the students develop an analytical understanding and
lifelong curiosity about social aspects of computing.

In Kling and Jewett’s view, it is not possible to teach social informatics step-by-step from a
traditional textbook. They stated that students needed to get past the concept that there is a
strictly technical solution for all problems, and “the tacit assumption that they, as
technologists, represent all users of technology. They need to deal carefully with ethical
conflicts, not just assume that they know right from wrong by intuition alone.” (Jewett &
Kling, 1996) According to the ideas of Jewett and Kling (1996; Kling, 2001), one has to
develop a set of objectives for the course, phrased in terms of student performance outcomes.
These objectives are also a help in devising ways to assess performance (both teachers and
students). Kling and Jewett focus on three ways of organizing these objectives:

• Describing outcomes
• Principles and skills
• Bloom’s taxonomy
Our objectives were that the students should attain a greater awareness of the problem of
sexual abuse of children and the use of ICT as a tool for both the abuser and victim, and learn
about the different problems and challenges concerning social aspects of computing.
More specifically, we wanted our students to be able to debate the issues in an organized and
coherent way, to develop their own views, and to be sensitized to the world around them.

At the same time there are of course certain facts that they should learn, just like in any other
course. In the issue of privacy, for example, we expect them to know what the Privacy
Information Act and the Data Inspectorate are. Bloom’s Taxonomy is a hierarchical
framework of learning based on three domains: cognitive, affective, and psychomotor.

In the cognitive domain there are six levels of knowledge: knowledge, comprehension,
application, analysis, synthesis, and evaluation. In the affective domain there are five levels:
• Receiving phenomena
• Responding to phenomena
• Valuing
• Organizing values
• Internalizing values

In the psychomotor domain there are seven levels:

• Perception
• Readiness to act
• Guided response
• Mechanism
• Complex overt action
• Adaptation
• Origination

In the Norwegian Upper Secondary Schools, it is the six levels within the cognitive domain
that are in use, and we therefore chose to concentrate on these six specific levels in our
organizing of the objectives. What we found particularly interesting in using Bloom’s
Taxonomy as a method for organizing our course in social informatics was that once you get
past the three first categories and move to the last three categories, the students stop being
neutral to the topic. Most students love to analyse and discuss, but some hate it. This reaction
from the students might be because the learning now causes them to change their actions,
behaviours, or beliefs. According to Bloom it is at this point that real learning begins.

Our use of Bloom’s taxonomy in organizing the course in social informatics closely follows
Dr. Tom Jewett’s course at CSULB, as described by Dr. Jewett and Dr. Kling (1996) in
“Teaching Social Issues of Computing: Challenges, Ideas and Resources.”

Through seminars, the use of blogs, lecture videos on YouTube, lectures in mp3 format
(podcast), online discussions and ordinary lectures, and using representatives from Save the
Children Norway, the Norwegian National Crime Squad and the author and lawyer Andrew
Vachss as lecturers and debaters, both in real life and online, the students explored such topics
as personal privacy, ICT and law, ICT and ethics, seizing and securing electronic evidence,
ICT and organizational theory, and ICT and politics.
To ensure that theory was integrated with practical work, the students had to do a project
based on tasks given them by Save the Children Norway and/or the Norwegian National
Crime Squad.

THE USE OF E-LEARNING IN TEACHING ICT AND ETHICS TO

TEACHER EDUCATION STUDENTS

Before we go on with further description of the use of “Project Getting Involved” in the
Teacher Educational study of ICT and Learning, we will quickly examine some points as for
student experience of e-learning. Much of the literature on e-learning is merely a description
what the teacher could do or has done online, while the student experience of those activities
goes largely undocumented. But a study by Alexander & McKenzie shows us a number of
major issues concerning e-learning from the student perspective (Rennie,2009). In the online
course of ICT and Learning at Nesna University College group work and cooperation is
considered key elements. In the study by Alexander & McKenzie we see that regardless of
the learning design being used in the projects, those students who did not have a positive
experience of working in groups did not appear to have achieved the desired learning
outcomes and were very negative about their experience. Only a small number of students
reported previous experience of group work, yet few of the faculty provided any kind of
preparation of students for this experience (Rennie,2009). In the online course ICT and
Learning at Nesna University College is was more or less assumed that the students had
previous knowledge of how to do group work and how to cooperate, and no specific
instructions on how to do this were provided.

Alexander & McKenzie’s work shows that if a project is designed to foster improved
understanding of subject content, yet the assessment of learning tested students’
memorisation of subject content, then students became aware of that very quickly, and
adjusted their approach to learning towards that of memorization. “Project Getting Involved”
was designed to improve understanding of the quite complex subject of ethical and social
issues connected to the use of Internet, and all assessment of students work where designed to
underline the individual students process of creating his or hers knowledge by bettering their
products. All reports made by the students where to be delivered to either Save the Children
Norway or the police, so they had to meet certain criteria as for analysis of their chosen
subjects.

In online courses, as well as in ordinary face to face courses, there will always be a certain
degree of resistance to new forms of learning, in particular amongst groups of students who is
not experienced learners (Rennie,2009). Many such students believe that the best form of
learning occurs when teachers give lectures, and they might resist all attempts by teachers to
involve them in activities that facilitated knowledge construction rather than reception of
information. This specific behavioural pattern from students was witnessed also within the
various courses of ICT and Learning, but less in the course where “Project Getting Involved”
was used.
Within the subject of Social Informatics for Teachers (ITL103) we tried to specifically focus
on the issue of feedback on their work, together with the use of one single ethical theme
throughout the course.

As for learning outcome we related our definition of learning to Marton et al’s conception of
learning as increasing one’s knowledge, with the main focus on broadening both students’
knowledge and awareness. But we also wanted to create “understanding” for the ethical issues
involving various internet related tools and therefore focused on developing problem based
learning activities within this online course (ITL103).

PROJECT-BASED TEACHING AS A TOOL FOR MOTIVATION IN ONLINE

EDUCATION

Students, like all human beings, are inherently active and curious. The desire to learn
something new, to explore and discover, is intrinsic to the nature of us all. Still, those of us
who have been working in the field of teaching for a longer period of time have more than
once witnessed students who seem to be completely disinterested from day one, or who lose
interest during the course. And this is especially true as for Computer Science students who
suddenly had to divert their attention from fascinating technical issues to ethical themes.
There are many theories of what motivates people, but in this particular project the work on
intrinsic motivation and self-determination by Deci and Ryan (1985) was central. Self-
determination theory is an approach to human motivation and personality that investigates the
basis for people’s self-motivation and personality integration (Ryan & Deci, 2000).
Motivation was also an important factor for Jewett and Kling (1996): “Our objective, then, is
to design a course—select topics, materials, and activities—which will develop the students’
internal motivation toward the course. At the minimum, we want to reach them in a way that
will resonate with their own interests. At best, we want each student to have a sense of
discovery—to find a new and exciting way of understanding computerization in their personal
and professional lives.” Jewett and Kling’s focus on internal and external motivation
corresponds with Deci and Ryan’s work on intrinsic motivation and self-determination (Deci
& Ryan, 1985; Ryan & Deci, 2000).

Many students are naturally enthusiastic about learning, but there are also some that need their
instructors to inspire, challenge, and stimulate them. They want to learn, but they also want to
feel that learning is meaningful for them and their situation: “Do you, as a teacher, know what
meaningful knowledge is? Do you, as a teacher, know what kind of knowledge is important to
me as a student? The question is difficult, but if you have no answers, why should I be your
student?” (Dale, 1989). Unfortunately, there is no single magical answer to these questions,
but in my view we are a long way towards an answer if we are able to involve both the hearts
and minds of our students.

There are many factors that affect the student’s motivation to work and to learn: interest in the
subject matter, perception of its usefulness, general desire to achieve, self-confidence and
self-esteem, and patience and persistence. But not all students are motivated by the same
values, needs, or desires. Some of the students will be motivated by extrinsic incentives: the
approval of others, overcoming challenges, etc.
The challenge for me as a teacher in social informatics was to address the students in such a
way as to enhance their intrinsic motivation for learning. This was important because research
has shown us that intrinsically motivated learning is superior to extrinsically motivated
learning (Deci & Ryan, 1985).

Both the use of project based teaching and video lectures and podcasts as a motivational tool
was based on a study by Benware and Deci in 1984, where the results indicated that the
subjects who learned a subject with expectation of putting their learning to active use were
more intrinsically motivated than those who learned without that expectation. One of the main
focus points of “Project Getting Involved” was to make the students active participants in
learning social informatics, even if they were not gathered in a lecture room.

The students used their learning to develop reports for the Save the Children Norway and the
National Criminal Investigation Service. In other words, they used their acquired knowledge
in a practical way; thereby providing new knowledge to the participating organizations and
experiencing that working with ethical themes are useful in connections with information
technology.

CONCLUSION

The battle against criminal use of Internet, and especially sexual abuse of children in digital
media, must be fought at several levels and “battlefields” at the same time.

In the world of Web 2.0, awareness, understanding and knowledge of the complex web that
binds together technology, young people`s need for creating an identity of their own, the
human craving for being seen by others as witnessed by the increased use of such social tools
as Facebook, Twitter and blogs and the dark side that follows every human invention, is
increasingly important. And it is up to each and every one of us, as teachers, lecturers,
students, parents and citizens, to combat the dark side of the power of ICT.

Among all the different ways of protecting our children, awareness work is perhaps a method
that in the end has the possibility to reach a large number of people. Sexual abuse of children
is an unpleasant problem to focus on, and it is therefore important that educational institutions
and other governmental institutions take a lead in the work of creating awareness among the
population. Nesna University College used project based teaching to create awareness of not
only sexual abuse of children on Internet, but also how various new tools for online
communication and expression can be used for criminal purposes and how thoughtless
actions by children and young people might turn online experience into a long lasting
nightmare, in Teacher Education and Computer Science students, and motivated them,
through the use of a true life project and using various Web 2.0 tools for lecturing, to spread
this awareness both at home and at work.
Nesna University College believes that the most important factor for insuring safe conduct on
Internet, outside of the parental role, is the digital knowledge and experience of teachers in
primary and secondary school. Therefore the students of Teacher Education, as well as
teachers doing continuous education within ICT, must be motivated to create and enhance
their knowledge and experience of all aspects of the various online tools that constitutes the
digital world of the 21th century.
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