With rapid development of Information-Communication technology both domestically and internationally, the number of the Internet and PC users is dramatically increasing, and so is the number of web-sites. This also increases the amount of information ...
With rapid development of Information-Communication technology both domestically and internationally, the number of the Internet and PC users is dramatically increasing, and so is the number of web-sites. This also increases the amount of information harmful to children and adolescents, and sometimes, even illegal, as well as the number of decent and profitable sites. Accordingly the cyber space is causing a lot of ethical problems such as illegal software dealing, communication fraud, virus circulating, personal information leaking, and hacking.
The information society requires citizens with a firm belief in information ethics, because how they use the Information-Communication technology relates directly to the matter of ethical choices. As our society, which has been going through the information revolution, has already experienced, the information age is accompanied by inhumanistic, unethical problems such as trespassing of privacy and human rights and computer crimes. To solve the kind of problems, the ethics on Information-Communication is urgently needed. It is also true, more than ever, of today's issue of keeping our identity against the flood of unhealthy information and computerization of human being.
So, it can be said that the education on the Information-Communication in the 7th Curriculum is very important in the sense that students will live as a member of information society in the future. The purpose of this study is, by comparing and analysing the seven textbooks concerned, to find out the characteristic aspects of each textbook related to information ethics, and to provide a basis for a view on what is more appropriate for effective education on information ethics.
The result of analysis is as follows. In general, the area that the textbooks are dealing most frequently is Information Ethics(43.3%), especially the basic principles of in(respect, responsibility, justice, no evil-doing). The A textbook, however, lacks in that aspect, which makes it necessary for the book to be complemented. The second most frequent area is the Information Society(28.3%). However, in all except the C textbook, the positive and negative sides of the information society are not balanced, so something should be done to keep the balance. The third most frequent area is about the Netiquette(18.9%). All textbooks, however, has nothing about the key rules of Netiquette. Finally, the least frequently-dealt area is how to cope in the information society. The ability to express oneself fair and exactly, which is important these days, can be found in no textbooks as their contents area. Therefore, we can say that the contents of textbooks are too weakly-composed to help students foster the ability to protect themselves safely in the cyber space.
Here are a few suggestions on how to build the education contents for Information-Communication ethics, on the basis of the result of the research so far.
First, the matter of Information-Communication ethics is appearing as a serious problem of our society, so the textbooks of Information Society and Computers should not be function-oriented only but have some balance between functions and ethics of the Information Society and Information-Communication.
Second, in determining the educational contents of Information-Communication ethics, the four basic area-Information Society, Information Ethics, Netiquette, and How to cope-should be balanced.
Third, the education of Information-Communication ethics is too much to be restricted to the Computer subject. Therefore, it is desirable that its curriculum needs to be connected to other related subjects. Furthermore, it is time to consider the possibility for the Information-Communication ethics to be one independent subject.