Legal and Security Concerns

Legal and Security Concerns

“The IWB enables students and teachers to interact with all the functions of a desktop computer through the board’s large, touch sensitive surface…(Murcia & Sheffield, 2010, p. 418).”  IWB have an endless use for what they can achieve within a classroom. One reason why the opportunities are limitless is because IWBs have the ability to connect to the Internet (Manny-Ikan & Dagan, 2011). The added element of Internet access instigates controversies of legal and security issues when using IWB to arise.

In regards to legal precautions, there is a large amount of content on the Internet that is not appropriate within an educational setting. If a teacher were to display something offensive to the classroom, he or she could potentially face being sued or even fired given the gravity of the situation. A lawsuit may also be filed if a teacher chooses to distribute copyrighted information to his or her students; whether it is visually or (since IWB can be connected printers) copyrighted information could also be physically distributed to students. Hypothetically a teacher could access a book they desire to use for their class and instead of having the student buy it, print off the material and distribute it to their students at no cost.

According to a report done by the University of London (2007) when it came to security, initially teachers were concerned about theft. However in 2005 a forum took place to address this concern with members of the police, government, IWB manufacturers, and intallation companies (Moss, Jewitt, Levacic, Armstrong, Cardini, & Castle, 2007). It seems that this concern arose from the quick turnaround that some schools had in acquiring IWBs and lack of detailed intitial training for teachers.

Once again returning to the fact that IWBs can connect to the Internet, IWBs have access to a teacher’s e-mail. This makes certain information that may be personal or private vulnerable to being distributed among a classroom. A solution to such a risk is to recommend that teachers log out of their emails while using the IWB. Another issue of privacy and security can be forseen when students share information through the IWB. As in the example above, teachers may ask students to distribute their work on the IWB. This could become a  security issue if students do not act apporpriately and post offensive, inappropriate, or even unseccured personal material that can be viewed by multple parties.