Don’t Be Evil: Should We Use Google in Schools?

Abstract

Google is a multinational technology company whose massive advertising profits have allowed them to expand into many areas, including education. While the company has increasingly faced public scrutiny, the use of Google software and hardware in schools has often resulted in little debate. In this paper, we conduct a technoethical audit of Google to address ethical, legal, democratic, economic, technological, and pedagogical concerns educators, students, and community members might consider. We describe how Google extracts personal data from students, skirts laws intended to protect them, targets them for profits, obfuscates the company's intent in their Terms of Service, recommends harmful information, and distorts students’ knowledge. We propose that educators and scholars more closely interrogate the tools of Google and other technology companies to move toward more democratic and just uses of technology in schools.

Trends and Topics in Educational Technology, 2022 Edition

“…Furthermore, tools created by Google and several other corporations—including social media platforms themselves—were also prevalent in the content of the tweets we analyzed. While we do not believe it is a bad decision on the part of individuals or educational institutions to use these and other tools, there are also some potential downsides to their use that we think invite critical questions (Burchfield et al, 2021; Krutka et al, 2021 ).…”

Educational futures after COVID-19: Big tech and pandemic profiteering versus education for democracy

“…Google is preparing these children to become consumers of ad content down the road by harvesting their data now. Despite its size and influence, Google only recently began to face criticism in the literature on educational technology ( Krutka et al 2021 ). There are many ways in which Google ignores its own terms of service, misleads school districts, and confuses users by, for example, stating that users own their data while Google merely collects users’ “information.” However, Lindh and Nolin (2016) note that it is often the case that, once users realize they have unwittingly relinquished control of their data, it is too late to shut down reliance on Google services.…”

“…The growing field of “technoethical” scholarship encourages educators to ask whether a given technology ethical is ethical despite the mirage that Google creates when it positions itself “as a free public service, divorced from marketplace contexts and concerns” ( Lindh and Nolin, 2016 , p: 650). Although Google construes its work in the sphere of education as benign and benevolent pedagogical aid, Krutka et al (2021) note that, Google’s incursion into education threatens and devalues traditional roles of teachers and librarians as sources of wisdom and experts in pedagogy…[Google] emphasizes an education where digital consumption, productivity, and surveillance may be prioritized over human dispositions such as curiosity, uncertainty, and privacy…stifling both public and private alternatives (p. 7). …”

L’intelligence artificielle en éducation : enjeux de justice

“…Un premier type d'enjeux est lié aux données massives que nécessite l'IA, lesquelles peuvent induire des biais éventuels et posent la question du respect de la vie privée des élèves et du personnel scolaire (Andrejevic et al, 2020 ;Perrotta et al, 2020). Krutka (2021) prend l'exemple de la suite éducative de Google, qui collecte des données sans consentement libre et éclairé des élèves et du personnel scolaire (en contradiction avec leurs propres politiques et celles des provinces et des états) et les exploite de manière opaque. Les données des élèves et du personnel scolaire sont donc utilisées à leur insu, causant ainsi un manquement au respect de leur vie privée.…”

“…ex., recommandation et sélection de contenus personnalisés). En revanche, les enjeux éthiques et critiques que soulève l'IA sont peu étudiés en enseignement supérieur (Zawacki-Richter et al, 2019), et en éducation plus largement (Krutka, 2021). Souhaitant contribuer à cette réflexion émergente, nous proposons d'aborder quelques enjeux éthiques et critiques de l'IA, sans toutefois prétendre à l'exhaustivité, ainsi que de formuler quelques pistes d'action permettant de mieux les prendre en compte, tant du point de vue de la conception que de l'usage.…”