Are We Academically Safe?

by Dr. Desiree Cremer

Teachers love to share their best practices with the understanding of mutual respect and classroom camaraderie. In the pandemic, with the age of Zoom, Webex, Google Classroom, Google Meet, Google Drive, and many online platforms. We have a new paradigm, creating practices for the distance learning, hybrid and blended platform. Teachers collaborate, and there is a quick sharing of files and documents. This exchange happens in a safe academic space.

We drop our work into our department’s Google Drive folder with accessibility for our school’s educational administrators. I sometimes comment, “here it goes into the Google Drive black hole.” I am comforted when I see my documents in the same place. 

Now we add another mechanism. We have professional consultants hired by schools to add to their teaching toolbox. What happens if a non-school personnel consultant has access to the entire school’s data team folder? — a shared folder with access to all the lesson plans and units. When teachers revise, modify, and post their work, the consultant sees it through “viewership” access.

“No permission was ever granted to the consultant to access my work”

This access opens an array of concerns. Why does the consultant have access? The collegial, collaborative environment takes a scary turn. What will the consultant do with the data? Sell it, claim ownership, and use it at another school. There is no way of knowing. Now, we no longer academically safe.