Technology and CS in Dallas

Is it okay to use Google products in the classroom, ethically?

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kathleen

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Something that has come up in my district — and something that causes me some concern — am I as a teacher using Google TOO much, and if so, am I crossing ethical boundaries when I do?

Google, as all search engines, make their money from advertising. Thus using Google (or any other product supported by advertising) products exclusively with my students might very well be crossing ethical boundaries.

I even wonder that sometime when we use Microsoft products exclusively, even if the district paid for them.

Google has several products available to educators that you might find of interest to use yourself or with your students.

Are you googling in your class?

Comments

One response to “Is it okay to use Google products in the classroom, ethically?”

  1. Alfred Thompson Avatar
    Alfred Thompson

    Does the district or any of the schools in the district have an exclusive agreement with any of the soda companies? A great many do. In return for exclusive access to students the school gets a scoreboard for the gym or the football field for “free.” Is that an ethical issue as well?
    A lot of things are paid for by advertising there days. Its just a fact of life. I would worry mostly in the content of the advertizing was appropriate and less about the advertising being there in the first place. Of course being a servant of a large company you’ll have to take what I say in context. 🙂
    If however you worry about too much Google then the search at http://www.live.com is pretty good. And http://local.live.com has great maps. I almost never use Google for anything. 🙂 And I use Hotmail.com and Windows Live Spaces rather than Gmail and Blogger as well. Good servant of my employeer that I am.

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