03_(35-54) Ethical Issue of Educational Technology Applied by the Uncritical.pmd


ETHICAL ISSUES OF EDUCATIONAL TECHNOLOGY APPLIED

BY THE UNCRITICAL MASS

Alireza Sayadmansour

University of Tehran, Iran

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Abstract

The article defines the ethics of educational technology in terms of its

benefits for teacher and student, and whether other motives determine its use.

The various drawbacks of current online methods and developments in the

distance education field are examined in view of its emphasis on the efficiency

of its course delivery technologies. The double-edged nature of all communi-

cations media is discussed, and the importance of evaluation studies is sug-

gested to ensure that new media are not adopted unless they represent clear

improvement over existing options. The age-old nature of these issues is illus-

trated by an analysis of the grievances of the Luddites, who opposed prac-

tices in the British textiles industry 200 years ago.

Prajna Vihara, Volume 12, Number 2 July-December 2011, 35-54

2000 by Assumption University Pressc

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35

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INTRODUCTION

In a recent interview, American teenage star Miley Cyrus explained

why she terminated her online social media account at Twitter.com:

That’s because you announce everything you are

doing...friends on the Internet (are) not cool, not safe, not fun

and most likely not real...I’m telling kids, “Don’t go on the

Internet. It’s dangerous, not fun, and it wastes your life” ...I

(now) have a personal life. (Morgan, 2010)

Social media and networking software are the current technology in-

volving the integration of text, audio and video communication methods that

have been available since the 1990s. For example, Twitter, the mobile text-

message equivalent of broadcast e-mail, allows the user to send a message to

a potentially unlimited number of people at once. A celebrity such as Miley

Cyrus is in a strong position to recognize the security dangers of this practice.

Unguardedly disclosing one’s location in a Twitter message (or ‘tweet’) has

caused the actress and her hotel to be surrounded by thousands of fans in

minutes; and a teenage role model is an ideal person to warn other teenagers

of the stalking and predatory practices that such methods enable.

Social networking sites provide many useful educational services.

Twitter has been used as a tool for helping students to organize their home-

work (Chisa, 2008); Facebook is used for social and political campaigns

(Goldfarb, 2009); students scour their cities in scavenger hunts using both of

these sites and location-tracking software on laptops, cell-phones, and GPS

systems (Bradshaw, 2010); and the writer’s own University has a social me-

dia research group dedicated to defining valid educational uses of the new

options. Each new medium has a potential “dark side”, however (Evans, 2010).

Bradshaw’s ‘Social Media Treasure Hunt’ teaches journalism students how

to “hunt” individuals and online and collect information about them. As long as

the individuals have given permission to be tracked, the activity is useful and

acceptable. Yet, the recent Australian case of a teenager lured to her death by

a ‘friend’ on Facebook (Dickinson, 2010), demonstrates that the same facili-

ties and skills can be used for other purposes entirely.

Society in general needs a greater understanding of these risks. Any-

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one can be stalked, blackmailed, bullied, or threatened by other online users,

especially when the software facilitates it. The Facebook web servers contain

personal information about, currently, 400 million users; and one can identify

individuals’ tastes and relationships from their Facebook profiles even with-

out needing to create an account of one’s own. Meanwhile, “location-aware”

web sites such as Brightkite, Foursquare, and Loopt make use of users’ cell-

phones to help “keep up with your friends, meet new people, and discover

new places. All while you’re out and about” (Brightkite.com, 2010). Four-

square similarly allows its users to know exactly where their ‘friends’ are, and

to link their account directly to their Facebook, Twitter and Google e-mail

(Gmail) accounts. This aggregated information makes it possible to check the

identities, addresses, and personal information of passersby in the street, and

to rob their houses before they get home (Yamshon, 2010). Software such as

Anonymizer and MuteMail disguise the location of the online searcher, thereby

protecting the identity of the innocent and guilty alike; and adding the

Recognizwr face recognition software to one’s cell phone carries this identifi-

cation process to a new level, allowing users to point their cell phone cameras

at passers-by and to download their personal details without their knowledge

(Dillow, 2010).

One would not easily guess at the intrusive potential of the Recog-

nizer software simply by looking at its web site, which not surprisingly stresses

the tool’s benefits for legitimate purposes only __ by, for example, students,

professionals, and college alumni associations. Numerous social networking

products strategically identify themselves with credible users in this way: e.g.

Second Life with educational institutions including Harvard University and the

UK Open University; and Facebook with thousands of users among the world’s

leading broadcasting networks, programs and professionals. Meanwhile, Sec-

ond Life has been shown to host activities including child pornography

(Connolly, 2007), prostitution (Boyes, 2009), and illegal gambling (Raby, 2007)
__ problems only partly addressed by the company responsible for its opera-

tions (Ferret, 2007; Linton, 2009; Secondlife.com, 2010a).

The risks of joining social networking communities are well docu-

mented (O’Neill, 2010), and web sites such as PleaseRobMe and

QuitFacebook are emerging to warn the public about social media risks.

These are also attracting increasing attention by agencies including the US

Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC, 2010; Raphael, 2009), and

Alireza Sayadmansour  37



Canada’s Office of the Privacy Commissioner (OPCC, 2009), which have

required Facebook to tighten its procedures in order to protect users’ secu-

rity. Facebook’s response has been to make modifications to its services and

web site design, while still leaving the responsibility for secure configuration of

user accounts to the individual subscribers. In the words of the company’s

26-year-old chief executive, Mark Zuckerberg (2009): “(We) understand that

everyone’s needs are different...the best way for you to find the right settings

is to read through all your options and customize them for yourself”.

Since making this statement, Zuckerberg has announced that Facebook

will soon be adding its own location-tracking software, so that users can know

“where a person is and to personalize what’s around them” (Schweizer, 2010).

Presumably, this refers to ways of delivering, for example, local advertising

material directly to individuals based on their interests and tastes. If Facebook’s

new tracking software has the same functions as the ‘location-aware’ services

cited earlier, one may also assume that it will subject even more users to the

same predatory risks. Meanwhile, information is readily available on how to

optimize the design of a Facebook page for marketing purposes (e.g.,

socialmediaforum. com, 2010; and socialmarketingforum.net, 2010); and the

risks of social software continue to escalate as the cautions of agencies and

individuals are ignored by millions of users who have no comprehension of the

risks, nor of how to configure their personal software settings so as to avoid

them.

When technologies are developed and implemented without sufficient

concern for their personal consequences, ethical questions arise.

DOUBLE-EDGED SWORDS

All media have the potential for harm as well as good. Film and tele-

vision have carried violent and potentially harmful content throughout their

histories. These broadcast media typically direct their messages at types of

consumer defined in demographic terms (e.g. the female teenager, or the young

professional). Today’s online media, however, owing to their added interactivity,

are capable of directing their effects at people individually identified by the

profiles they have placed online, by the history of their online activities, and by

the unique Internet protocols (IPs) of their computers. Thus, the Internet has

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created a new era of social risk, with new media recalling Boyle’s description

(1661) of double-edged swords “as well applicable to the service of False-

hood, as of Truth”. The warnings about online media risks expressed by ob-

servers and government agencies seem plaintive and unavailing in the face of

the enthusiastic acceptance of these media by millions of cell phone users and

endorsements by countless credible media figures, political leaders, academ-

ics and their institutions.

How aware are these individuals, one wonders, of the risks attached

to the methods they encourage? In the educational world at least, one would

assume that the necessary research and evaluation skills are available to en-

sure that the adoption of new technologies is based on carefully weighed evi-

dence of their merits. The basic question seems a simple one: do the new

educational media and methods benefit the teaching process and especially

the learner? On the other hand, do they involve side-effects that can detract

from educational benefits? In practice, however, the multi-way interactions of

media technique, content, and the capabilities of the teacher and learner are

difficult to disentangle (Salomon, 1993); and reliable and predictive conclu-

sions about cost effectiveness require complex and often impracticable re-

search and evaluation designs (Flagg, 1990). As a result, decisions about

educational technology implementation are commonly based on other criteria

than cost-effectiveness, raising distinct ethical concerns (Morningstar, 2004).

The ethical problems of technology implementation are particularly

acute in distance education (DE), which relies entirely on the efficiency of its

communication technologies rather than employing them as supplementary to

campus-based options. Without an adequate technological infrastructure, the

goals of DE are unattainable and distance educators have a prime responsibil-

ity to ensure that appropriate technologies are in place. Unfortunately, efforts

to validate technological usage in DE have been no more successful than in

conventional educational media contexts __ a fact lamented by numerous writ-

ers; e.g., Moore in his discussion (1985) of field’s weakness in relation to

disciplined research under controlled conditions; in Farrell’s analysis (2001)

of the “dysfunctional” development of DE technologies; and in McKee’s ac-

count (2010) of the field’s 30-year “identity crisis, defined by a developmen-

tal deluge of pedagogies and technologies, depending on the favored course

delivery methods of the day”.

Particular issues in online DE implementation relate to lack of student

Alireza Sayadmansour  39



access to the technologies selected (Samaranayake et al., 2010), and to the

concerns of students and teachers in relation to, for example, online learning

management systems (LMS). Hotrum (2005) has suggested that LMS meth-

ods have caused students to lose “control of their learning process and activi-

ties, while the LMS vendors/ administrators (and by implication instructors)

have increased their control over a fixed style of learning that fails to evolve”.

In relation to social media activities, Cleal (2009) reports that students who

are concerned about the outcomes of their work express frustration at being

asked to join in Second Life ‘virtual world’ activities that they regard as mere

play. Dissatisfaction and loss of interest of this type have been identified as

reasons for the rapid decline and closure of online communities (Garber, 2004);

and Hughes (2010) indicates that the need for  evidence of pedagogical valid-

ity is as central in the adoption of the new social  networking methods as in the

case of any previous technology.

During the same 2005-10 period, open-source software (OSS) and

open publishing approaches have evolved with the laudable goal of reducing

the commercial domination of the educational content industry. Yet these same

approaches also involve a loss of quality control, as indicated by analyses of

open editing biases in the popular Wikipedia information source (Sydney

Morning Herald, 2007), and by the repository’s own official self-description,

“the free encyclopedia that anyone can edit” (Wikipedia.org, 2010). In addi-

tion, an increase is evident in student plagiarism based on the ease of online

‘copying and pasting’ (Derby, 2008); and a corresponding increase is ob-

served in multiple publications of individual journal articles by academics (Errami

& Garner, 2008). Ignoring such practices can seem to condone them. Educa-

tors have an ethical responsibility to address these unacceptable side-effects

of technological usage, using plagiarism checking services (e.g. Turnitin.com),

and devising firm but fair procedures for dealing with abusers (Baggaley &

Spencer, 2005). The current writer’s most recent uses of the Turnitin service

have indicated the frequent use of Wikipedia and online essay providers as

unattributed sources of student work (analyses in progress); and the fact that

the writer and his academic professors are noting increasing examples of stu-

dents breaking University’s conduct codes by hiring “professional academic

editors” may indicate that some students are at very least confused as to the

ethical standards now expected of them.

The ease of online referencing has also had a discomforting impact on

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the current writer’s practices. The reference list of the current article, for ex-

ample, contains an unusually high proportion of citations (35/73) which would

have been impossible before the expansion of online resources. While it is

satisfying to be able to illustrate one’s points with such a large amount of up-

to-date material, it is worrying that so many of the sources increasingly cited

are ‘blogs’ by unknown and unaccredited people rather than quality-assured

traditional sources. The four-year ‘shake-down’ period whereby submitted

articles were reviewed, published in print form, absorbed, and cited in subse-

quent articles, is a thing of the past. The ethical responsibility of ensuring qual-

ity in the world of instant online publication is not simplified by ease of access

to this increasing repertoire of un-reviewed information.

CONFLICTING MOTIVES AND PRIORITIES

The technologies themselves would not be double-edged swords at

all if those involved in technology selection did not bring conflicting motives

and priorities to the process. These can influence decisions about appropriate

technologies in ways detrimental to the teachers’ and learners’ interests. Each

party in the process has the ethical responsibility of ensuring that decisions

about technology selection and implementation protect the institution’s educa-

tional objectives, and the teacher’s and student’s efficiency. The stakeholders

in question, and examples of their ethical responsibilities, are as follows.

1) Personnel who base their careers on encouraging technology

innovation.

The educational media literature of the last 50 years has chronicled a

steady parade of new technologies, in articles by academics and resource

staff who welcome the opportunity to suggest that each new medium might

possibly replace other options already in place. Those who encourage inno-

vative technologies are ethically responsible to provide reasonable evidence

that new media represent improvement. When students are required to take

part in online virtual-world activities, for example, it is ethically vital for the

teacher to inform them in advance of the risks of incautious social media use,

and of how to configure their software for personal security.

Alireza Sayadmansour  41



2) Hardware and software vendors.

Salesmen are probably the last people one expects to give impartial

and objective accounts of new technologies. In Baggaley’s first week (Baggaley,

2011) of University employment forty years ago, he asked for a demonstra-

tion of a shiny box designed to convert Super-8 film into TV images. Unfortu-

nately, the University had paid £3,000 for the gadget before discovering that

compatible educational film was not being produced for it. One can hardly

blame vendors for failing to mention basic information of this type when their

livelihoods depend upon it. The ethical responsibility of today’s social media

developers to fully explain the security risks of their products, however, is

crucial; and the failure of social media vendors to clamp down on illegal activi-

ties and security loopholes before subscribers are exposed to them seems

ethically indefensible. Second Life did not put its 2007 curbs in place before

a Federal investigation required it, by which time the number of active users

was already an estimated 90,000 (Reuters, 2007); and Facebook only cre-

ated adequately secure facilities after 400 million active users had been ex-

posed to its security loopholes (Schweizer, 2010; Facebook, 2010a).

3) Instructional designers.

A tendency to over-complicated visual designs was one of the factors

that lead to the marginalization of television as an educational medium in the

1970s. Lesser (1974) wrote of the importance of constant evaluation in edu-

cational TV production and delivery, and of the leadership of the Children’s

TV Workshop (producer of Sesame Street) in making evaluation a central

part of the process. As a result of its in-house research, the CTW learned to

simplify its delivery style to appropriate levels for its preschool audience __ a

valuable lesson for all educational media designers. Today’s online software

also tends to be over-complicated in its facilities and navigation procedures

(Hotrum et al., 2005); and a recent analysis by Elias (2010) indicates that in-

house designers of the popular open-source software Moodle tend to use

relatively few of the accessibility options available for it. The ethical responsi-

bility of instructional design specialists is to be aware of the accessibility prob-

lems that affect the users, and to ensure that the materials overcome them.

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4) Educational researchers and evaluators.

The difficulty of isolating the effects of individual media and design

features has been mentioned above. In the 1970s and ’80s, this methodologi-

cal issue was a major focus in the educational media literature, and the predic-

tive value of research and evaluation studies evolved as the technological and

psychological variables of the educational delivery process were defined. A

notable framework for such studies was provided by the aptitude-treatment-

interaction (ATI) concept, which stressed the need to isolate the effects of

specific media techniques upon specific types of student (Cronbach & Snow,

1977. The generation of researchers and evaluators that has since emerged to

address the pedagogical value of, for example, online conferencing and social

networking methods, has an ethical responsibility to uphold that detailed level

of analysis, distinguishing between the broad technologies and the specific

techniques of their use, and focusing on the most efficient approaches for

specific purposes, rather than merely reporting general student reactions to

innovative treatments without giving details of the activities’ content and de-

sign.

5) Institutional administrators.

The tendency of institutional administrators to invest in educational

technologies without justifying them via evaluative evidence is illustrated in

Morningstar’s analysis (2004). At that time, a popular but expensive learning

management system, WebCT, was launching an even more expensive version

to which many educational institutions were upgrading. Morningstar presented

evidence of the cost-ineffectiveness of transferring to the new system, and

pointed out that the 1st-year costs of implementing it at a large academic insti-

tution would be over USD 600,000, compared with the minimal operational

costs of more flexible open-source freeware alternatives. Institutional admin-

istrators have an ethical responsibility to ensure that the features, licensing fees

and running costs of educational hardware and software are compared with

those of alternative products each time a new commercial license or license

renewal is considered.

Alireza Sayadmansour  43



6) Funding agencies.

Decisions to purchase and explore the value of educational technolo-

gies are commonly dictated by financial support from external agencies. When

a new educational medium emerges with innovative potential, it is quite likely

that a request for funding to investigate it will be more successful than an

equally good proposal to explore new uses of an older medium. Education

using television or radio, for example, is no longer a prime candidate for sup-

port by international funding agencies, even though these are the only acces-

sible media for the vast majority of developing country students. After funding

an initial investigation of a new medium, agencies commonly regard it as new

no longer, and are less interested in supporting studies of its use in new situa-

tions. Funding agencies have an ethical responsibility to address these acces-

sibility and sustainability issues, and to make reliable interpretations of the

evolving techniques for media usage.

7) Government policy-makers.

Ultimately, the technology implementation decisions of many of the

above parties depend upon the priorities and concerns of national and re-

gional governments. In countries where sophisticated Internet and cell-phone

technologies have major commercial potential, their development is naturally

encouraged. That these media may have no potential for teachers and stu-

dents who cannot access them does not necessarily deter policy-makers from

encouraging their educational adoption. Policymakers have a responsibility to

invest in new and promising technologies for society’s benefit; but they also

have an ethical responsibility to ensure that traditional media are preserved

side-by-side with the emerging media, to provide education and training until

the new media have the same penetration and efficiency and can take over the

task.

When the priorities of any two of these decision-making parties come

into conflict, the result can be the adoption of an educational technology that

makes little or no improvement on the status quo. If individual motives lead to

the selection of a technology, or of ways of using it, that do not benefit the

teacher and the learner, they may well be unethical. The conflicting criteria and

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priorities of its decision-making process has led the educational media field to

evolve in a hit-and-miss fashion over the years. For the teachers and students

who must use the technologies, it can feel at times like “trying to hit a moving

target” (McKee, 2010). The situation was described in a classic jibe attrib-

uted to the Roman writer Gaius Petronius (though actually by Ogburn, 1957):

We trained hard ... but it seemed that every time we were beginning to

form up into teams we would be reorganized. I was to learn later in life that we

tend to meet any new situation by reorganizing; and a wonderful method it can

be for creating the illusion of progress while producing confusion, inefficiency,

and demoralization.

That problems in the adoption of new technological infrastructures

are by no means new is illustrated by a notorious event that occurred exactly

200 years ago, in which conflicts of priority between the parties in a work-

place disagreement had disastrous consequences.

A 200-YEAR PROBLEM

This year (i.e.2011) marks the bicentenary of the Luddite Revolt, in

which British textiles workers expressed their opposition to changes in the

activities and policies of their workplace. These workers have since been

vilified as ignorant opponents of technological progress; but latter-day ana-

lysts including Thompson (1963), Pynchon (1984), and Thomas (2009) have

indicated that the Luddites actually held concerns markedly similar to those

commonly expressed about technology today, and that they were violently

and unjustly obstructed in their efforts to raise their concerns. A direct com-

parison between the points made by the Luddites in 1811 and those com-

monly expressed about modern educational technology indicates that the cen-

tral ethical dilemmas have remained basically unchanged. The case has been

discussed in relation to educational media practices by Baggaley (2011a), and

is summarized as follows.

The Luddites claimed to have a legal right to decommission work-

place machinery that was not being used according to their prior agreements

with the management (Luddite Manifesto, 1812); and they smashed or at

least disabled their machinery to draw attention to their grievances about work-

place practice. Yet they were not, as commonly supposed, hostile to the tech-

Alireza Sayadmansour  45



nology per se, for they had already been using the same machines for two

hundred years. Their grievance was with non-agreed increases in the sales

prices of their products, with new industry practices of “not marking the work

according to quality”, and with a resulting loss of artistry in their products as

handed down from fathers to sons. In return they were branded as thugs,

arrested, in some cases executed, and in many cased deported. The factory

managements were more concerned to ally with the evolving commercial in-

terests of the Industrial Revolution, and the British government sent the stron-

gest possible message that workplace revolt would not be tolerated, by call-

ing in the army to quell it.

This historical event illustrates the conflicting interests of those who

feel that their responsibility is to encourage innovative technologies; those who

design, fund, and create the goods; workplace administrators; and govern-

ment policy-makers. Each of the parties involved in the Luddite Revolt could

no doubt argue that their priorities and decisions were ethically justified, al-

though it seems impossible to justify the British government’s decision to smash

the Luddite workers with an army of 12,000 troops __ twice as many as were

sent to Europe to defeat Napoleon.

Today, teachers and students continue to grapple with the problems

of adapting to new technologies, and “fast-adopters” (Rogers, 2003) still call

“slow-” and “non-adopters” Luddites! But technologies commonly used in

global education (e.g. online) are inaccessible to hundreds of millions of stu-

dents; thus demands to preserve traditional media techniques are as justified

today as in the 19th century. The Luddites’ concern for the raising of prices for

their goods is echoed in the criticisms of educational institutions today which

invest in expensive commercial software when open-source freeware is more

flexible and customizable. Concern for loss of artistry caused by automated

methods is seen in the modern-day criticisms of educational technology as

destroying the artistry of the individual teacher and the personal relationship of

the teacher and student (Noble, 1993; Robertson, 1998). Possibly the stron-

gest message sent by the Luddites over the centuries, addressing each of

these concerns, is the need for more efficient quality control in technological

adoption. Their Manifesto gave specific, expert examples of how manage-

ments were “not marking the work according to quality”. Today, quality as-

surance and ‘best practices’ in educational media tend to be globally defined

without reference to local conditions and cultures; and the justifications for

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them tend to be undisciplined. Thus, demands for greater professionalism in

technological adoption are as needed today as 200 years ago. The fact that

the name Luddite, adopted by the concerned workers of 1811, is still used

disparagingly owing to shameless political propaganda against them, is the

cruelest cut of all.

CONCLUSIONS: THE UNCRITICAL MASS

The educational world tends to follow the currents of technological

innovation rather than leading them. Television and the Internet were only

adopted as educational tools in the 1970s and ’90s after becoming a part of

the social fabric in general; and educational methods using, for example, today’s

social media methods are suggested by their popularity in society at large

rather than by visions for their educational use.  Research and quality control

relating to the latest online techniques are still in their infancy, as Hughes (2010)

has indicated, and are post hoc rather than pre-emptive. To anticipate the

central ethical issues of today’s educational technology, researchers and evalu-

ators need to give prime consideration to the techniques of media usage, as in

educational television’s intensive development period of the 1970s and ’80s.

The distinction between technology and technique is far less upheld in the

analysis of today’s online methods than in earlier educational media research,

possibly because the researchers of today’s online methods have not absorbed

the literature of the previous generation, believing it to be pass?.

As a result of undisciplined research and evaluation, technologies are

liable to be adopted in education once a critical mass of the population has

embraced them for their personal purposes; but these users cannot be ex-

pected to base their selections on educational criteria. One might describe

them as the “uncritical mass” that drives the decisions about uses of innovative

technology regardless of the lack of justifying evidence. Those who design

and promote educational technologies have long failed to see the need for

needs assessment and usage research, and have discouraged it via arguments

such as “If the Romans had to consider how their roads would be used, they

would never have built them”; and questionable mottos such as “If we build it,

they will come!” The conflicting motives and priorities of the individual parties

in the educational technology selection and design process need to be weighed

Alireza Sayadmansour  47



and harmonized by the professional bodies that advise the issue internation-

ally. Their guiding criterion in testing these motives should be whether or not

the educational interests of the teacher and the student are protected or un-

dermined. Ultimately, a fundamental shift is required in the professional atti-

tudes of the educational technology field as a whole, if ethical issues such as

these are to be resolved. The risks arising out of the lack of control over

current educational media are greater than ever before, owing to the ability

they provide to infiltrate the personal data, lives, and identities of individuals.

Solutions to ethical issues arising in this situation are currently being offered by

increased attention to quality assurance and ‘best practices’ in international

distance education (Baggaley & Belawati, 2010, Belawati & Baggaley, 2010;

Jung & Latchem, 2011). Nonetheless, based on his involvement in this field of

research, the current writer sees a need for greater attention to ways of ensur-

ing that quality principles leap from the page into action and policy, rather than

languishing on the academic shelf. The literature of international education

habitually proclaim the advantages of new technologies without admitting that

the local infrastructure and skills to use them are inadequate; and many writ-

ings about quality assurance amount to little more than empty public relations

statements, to the effect that “quality is important, and at University X we are

in favor of it!”

The abiding message to educational technologists worldwide is that

hundreds of millions of would-be students will have no access to the educa-

tion and vocational training they need unless accessible and appropriate dis-

tance-based technologies are devised for them. Criticisms of distance educa-

tion quality are often well justified, though do not ultimately undermine this

basic sine qua non. The prospect of expanding the reach and value of global

education can keep an educational technologist challenged and involved in the

field despite its hurdles, distinguishing the technologies capable of moving the

field forward from those which let it down, and focusing on the ethical prac-

tices and the potential risks that attend them. Educational institutions have a

key responsibility to acquaint their teachers and students with the risks asso-

ciated with novel technologies, especially when students may be pressed into

using them for obligatory coursework activities. Celebrities such as the teen-

age star applauded at the beginning of this chapter for closing her Twitter

account to prevent its abuse have a prime role to play in passing on this mes-

sage to the public.

48  Prajna Vihara- -
~



Sadly, in the decision-making of that particular celebrity, the “uncriti-

cal mass” appears to be triumphing. After closing her Twitter account a year

ago, Miley Cyrus has since reopened it, following a fan’s threat to kill a cat if

she refused to do so (Hollywood Gossip, 2009).

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