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Data curated for us, through media outlets, search engines results, and algorithm-based social media applications often comes at the cost of the privacy of personal information in the digital environment. As access to information gets easier in digital environments, concerns around personal privacy become increasingly apparent. This is particularly true for students, where digital technologies may be used and required in the classroom setting as part of an educator’s educational methodologies toolkit. It is therefore interesting to consider a librarian’s role in advocating for, teaching about, and facilitating access to information regarding digital privacy both at the student-level and educator-level.

In beginning to understand what digital privacy training or information dissemination may look like in relation to educational technology (EdTech) I’ve come across some starting point resources for digital privacy literacy.

Curriculum and Pedagogy:

Digital pedagogy may be an entry point into understanding the use of digital technologies in the classroom setting as it is underpinned by a critical pedagogical perspective. Digital pedagogy is built upon theories such as constructivism, connectivism, and technological pedagogical content knowledge (TPACK) and can result in the use of “innovative teaching strategies” such as gamification and flipped classrooms.

Much of writing surrounding digital pedagogy appears to be written in the context of digital humanities and EdTech, however, there seems to be the opportunity to bridge digital pedagogy and the issues surrounding digital privacy through a socio-technical perspective on information systems. Bringing together science and technology studies, socio-technical approaches are able to acknowledge that information (digital) technologies are not neutral, evoking through criticality a myriad of relevant questions such as digital inclusion, accessibility, data security, and could further extend to promoting participatory approaches in the context of learning.

Keywords and ideas for further exploration:

#digitalfootprint as a key component of #digitalcitizenship has already been advocated for adoption in early literacy instruction. It is interesting to consider what it may look like to extend digital literacy education for young adults and children to further include #digitalprivacy as an aspect of online safety. In the context of EdTech specifically, researchers at the University of Chicago and New York University have found that frequently used EdTech software tools are deploying the use of cookies and trackers to collect #personalinformation of students (and any user) bringing security and privacy concerns to the forefront of the softwares’ use.

Why now and what’s next:

In a post-COVID-19 world we know that digital tools are here to stay. EdTech software will presumably be a mainstay of educational tools but with recent (2022) findings published by Internet Safety Labs suggesting that 96% of surveyed EdTech apps share children’s data with third-party companies often without consent and include the use of targeted digital advertising there is a clear need to explore student privacy data protection training. However, when investigating training resources about digital privacy and digital safety in schools using EdTech software, the Chicago-NYC study found that school districts cited a lack of resources including both IT personnel and those with knowledge of security and privacy issues to provide further training. It will be interesting to explore this educational gap through the perspective of teacher librarianship, which may seek to use EdTech through digital pedagogy as a means to demonstrate the inherent negotiation between the values and adverse aspects of using digital technologies.

I hope that this investigation will further my knowledge of how to incorporate, communicate, and enhance my own learning about digital privacy education within age-appropriate contexts such as at the primary or secondary school levels.

If you’re asking – “but what do I do as an educator or librarian, I need this information now!” here is a consumable yet informative 5 minute video that presents some of the information privacy concerns regarding student data: