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School districts are being asked to loosen mandatory video
requirements for online learning
because of student privacy and equity
concerns.
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DA District Administration
3 alternatives to requiring video in online learning
Encourage students to respond with “reactions,” emojis or chat features.
By: Matt Zalaznick
December 4, 2020
Compelling students to turn on their webcams during online learning
sessions raises issues of increased data collection, implies a lack of
trust, and conflates students’ school and home lives, according to new
recommendations from The Future of Privacy Forum and National Education
Association.
“Requiring that students’ videos be on may unintentionally force
students to reveal more about their private home lives than they may
want to, from their living situation to who they live with, creating
the potential for privacy harms,” said Amelia Vance, The Future of
Privacy Forum‘s director of youth and education privacy. “It also risks
deepening existing inequities, presenting additional challenges for
students with disabilities, English language learners, and students
with limited access to adequate Wi-Fi or video-supported devices.”
The groups note that 77% of students started the semester remotely, and
surging COVID rates this fall are increasingly forcing districts that
had re-opened classrooms to shift back online.
“Video mandates during virtual class instruction coerces students
to further blur the vanishing line between their home and school
lives,” said Donna M. Harris-Aikens, the NEA’s senior director of
education policy and practice. “When educators are required by
districts to force video use, it violates the trust they’ve built with
their students over countless hours of relationship-building through
this pandemic and needlessly puts learning at risk in the pursuit of
administrative oversight,”
Last month, the two groups and 23 other healthcare, disability rights,
civil liberties, and data protection organizations released 10
principles to help educators navigate the “new normal” of student
privacy and equity.
In new recommendations, the two groups urge educators to explore the following alternatives to requiring video:
Measuring classroom engagement: Use end-of-lesson quizzes or encourage
students to respond and interact with material in different ways, such
as with “reactions,” emojis or chat features.
Using avatars: Avatars protect student privacy while encouraging
creativity; they also let educators teach to more than a blank screen.
Considering privacy and equity throughout the process: While video
seems like the closest alternative to in-person learning, educators
should weigh the benefits with privacy and equity risks such as
increased data collection and the permanent documentation of personal
aspects of students’ home lives.
Teaching students about privacy and how to ingrain it into their online
lives: Students should understand the implications of sharing personal
information, what data is being collected about them, and how to adjust
settings within products and services to be more privacy-protective.
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