After reading the topic 1 article, I learned the importance of privacy. Regan and Jesse’s six distinct ethical concerns are identified: information privacy; anonymity; surveillance; autonomy; non-discrimination; and ownership of information. I agree with everyone should value their privacy, because these are your private things. We should learn how to protect our privacy. With big data, anonymization of information about individuals becomes more difficult, if not impossible, as big data makes reidentifying data rather easy (Sweeney 2000). Also, the first issue raised by Big Data is that the collection of personal information should be done with the knowledge of the individual, and the amount of information should be minimized to the extent necessary for the specific purpose for which it was collected. This is a classic information privacy issue. For many personalized learning systems, student data, such as age, gender, grade level, and test scores, are analyzed based on idealized models of student performance, students from the same background or class, or a nationwide pool of grades and ability levels. In other areas of students’ lives, expectations for monitoring have been normalized. Predictive analytics incorporated into many individualized learning plans may limit student choice, thereby limiting the autonomy of students and teachers who often do not understand or easily explain why some students are given different choices than others. Differences in choices across students can imply discrimination among students, which may manifest itself or involve race, ethnicity, gender, or other classifications that are not permitted by social norms or law. These are the things I was afraid would happen. And how can we prevent this from happening?
Reference:
Regan, & Jesse, J. (2018). Ethical challenges of edtech, big data and personalized learning: twenty-first century student sorting and tracking. Ethics and Information Technology, 21(3), 167–179. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10676-018-9492-2