Ethical fault lines

Teaching About the Web Includes Troublesome Parts – NYTimes.com.

Here’s an interesting article about a curriculum to help teachers educate kids about how to act online. While the professor who created the program refers to these as “ethical” fault lines, it is surprising how many are also legal fault lines. Perhaps by framing them as ethical, he is embracing the fact that none of these issues are entirely clear (or bright line) from a legal standpoint.

Common Sense’s classes, based on research by Howard Gardner, a Harvard psychology and education professor, are grouped into topics he calls “ethical fault lines”: identity (how do you present yourself online?); privacy (the world can see everything you write); ownership (plagiarism, reproducing creative work); credibility (legitimate sources of information); and community (interacting with others).