HW #5-Ethics & Legality
For homework #5, I chose to observe the TeachersPayTeachers website. TeachersPayTeachers allows teachers to buy or sell downloadable, educational material. The teaching material can be original copies of works or the material can be created by the teacher themselves. The website is easy to navigate and is organized nicely in tabs by subject, type of resource, and price. TeachersPayTeachers relies on reviews from users to give information about the different resources. Available for viewing are a product’s product overview, ratings and comments, questions about the product, and questions about the seller of a product.
As to whether or not the idea of this website is legal, I am not too sure. However, it is not illegal to sell an old textbook on Amazon, and isn’t that kind of the same idea? Picture two 1st grade teachers with different classes whose classrooms are next door to each other in an elementary school. Those 1st graders are most likely learning the same material, so it is likely that those neighboring teachers discuss how their classes are doing. Maybe they even show each other their lesson plans or allow them to borrow each other’s used books. Would these elementary school teachers be likely to get in trouble for this? Most likely not. I think that the only difference between this scenario and TeachersPayTeachers is that TeachersPayTeachers is a website which is open to the public. If in any way this website had any illegal value, there would be more of a chance for those using it to get caught.
As for ethics, I believe that this website is indeed ethical. The internet is used for so many different purposes and so many different people are active online. TeachersPayTeachers is a website that teachers can benefit from. They can discuss and exchange their different opinions. This website is no less ethical than someone burning a CD of music from their music library and giving it to a friend, and many people have partaken in that. There are so many factors that go into whether or not this website is legal and or ethical, however, if the website is still up and running then that must mean that no one else finds the website to be a problem either! TeachersPayTeachers is to teachers as Facebook is to us college kids.