The Ethical, Philosophical & Social Issues:

Telecommunication Projects

EDER 677 Team: Holly & Alfred

 Social Issues

 Social Issues:

 The digital divide

 Internet Safety

EDER 677 Team: Holly & Alfred

 The Digital Divide
What’s The Digital Divide?

Casualties of the digital divide

Factors Inducing The Digital Divide

Feasible solutions to the digital divide

EDER 677 Team: Holly & Alfred

 The Digital Divide

What’s The Digital Divide?

Pervasive inequities in access to information technology

and the internet.

EDER 677 Team: Holly & Alfred

 The Digital Divide

Casualties Of The Digital Divide

Minority groups, women, rural communities and

developing countries are most affected

EDER 677 Team: Holly & Alfred

 Factors Inducing the Digital
Divide

Poverty
Illiteracy
Lack of basic computer skills
Resistance to technology
Language Skills

EDER 677 Team: Holly & Alfred

 Solutions to the Digital Divide
http://www.dotforce.org/teams/
 National E-strategy

 Action and connectivity

 Human capacity and knowledge

 Enterprise and entrepreneurship

 Global policy participation

 ICT for health

 Local content and participation

EDER 677 Team: Holly & Alfred

 Internet Safety
Internet Related Risk

Exposure to inappropriate material

Potential for physical molestation
Harassment
Legal and Financial Risks
Drugs, alcohol, tobacco et cetera
Exposure to gambling
EDER 677 Team: Holly & Alfred
 Promoting Internet Safety
Parental Involvement & Supervision
Open dialogue with children
Caution children never to share identifying information on the
internet
Avoid listing children’s name and e-mail address in public
directories
Familiarize yourself with the internet and the sites your child
visits
Never allow children to arrange in person meetings without
parental involvement

Internet safety on the the web: http://www.safekids.com/

EDER 677 Team: Holly & Alfred
 Philosophical Issues
Philosophy …the sum of the beliefs and attitudes of a specified group (Penguin,
2000) Hence, the informing tenets of and or imperatives of telecommunication
technology and distributed learning

 The purpose of telecommunication technology

 Technological imperative & communications technology

 Telecommunication technology as manifesting the global reach

EDER 677 Team: Holly & Alfred

 Philosophical
Issues
The Purpose of Telecommunications Technology

Within the larger capitalism mediated context,

telecommunications technology predominantly
advances capital accumulation
(Lorimer & McNulty, 91).

EDER 677 Team: Holly & Alfred

 Philosophical Issues

The technological imperative of the global

economy:

“The mobilization of technology to accelerate

capital accumulation”
(Lorimer & McNulty, 1991).

EDER 677 Team: Holly & Alfred

 Philosophical Issues

How telecommunication technology

manifests the global reach:

Telecommunication technology primarily

exploits the value of audience to advertisers,
providing information, education, and
entertainment is secondary. (Lorimer &
McNulty, 91)

EDER 677 Team: Holly & Alfred

 Ethical Issues
 Definition of  Ethic, ethical, ethics

 the discipline dealing with what is good and bad

and with moral duty and obligation
 a set of moral principles or values
 the principles of conduct governing an individual
or a group <professional ethics>
 a guiding philosophy
(Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary)
EDER 677 Team: Holly & Alfred
 nl in e e t i qu e t te
O Legal Issues
Plagiarism
Honesty
ISSUES
Are not necessarily
Privacy
unique to the online
environment
r n e r
L e a Geographic D
ity iversity
v e r s
d i
Cultural diversity Student Authenticity

Intellectual content
EDER 677 Team: Holly & Alfred
 Cultural Diversity
 E-learning community becoming more
culturally varied

 Many cultural aspects are expressed physically

 Use of text, combined with culture and

language diversity can lead to
misinterpretation
EDER 677 Team: Holly & Alfred
 Legal Issues
 Privacy
 Interaction with course management software
requires certain information from students

 All online activity within that site is tracked

 The “silent” communication that student’s home

computers are relaying

EDER 677 Team: Holly & Alfred

 Legal Issues
 Copyright & Plagiarism
 Applicable to both Student & Instructor
 Applicable to traditional classrooms & online
learning

 Student Authenticity
 Is the student that is producing the work, the same
student that is registered?
 ESL issues

EDER 677 Team: Holly & Alfred

 Learner Diversity
 Students with special needs
 technology can actually make it easier to
interact with all types of students

 Needs to be kept in mind during curriculum design

in order to maximize capabilities of the technology
 Hearing, visually, and speech impaired
 Physical capabilities

EDER 677 Team: Holly & Alfred

 Time to Vote for your…
Breakout Session
1. What types of internet risk are adults exposed to?
(hate related literature, subversive technology such
as bomb-making ...)
1.  How can these risks be minimized without
excessive censorship? 
2. Are current approaches to bridging the digital
divide addressing root causes? 
3. Does information technology advance the
cause for social justice or simply reinforce
dominant economic structures?
EDER 677 Team: Holly & Alfred