An ethical issue I think I’ll be facing in my teaching career is Illegal software downloading/piracy.
One main suite of software used within TAS is the Adobe Creative Suite of applications, which includes Photoshop, Flash, Dreamweaver and Premiere Pro.
As this software normally costs several hundred dollars to license per user, many schools are looking at using open-source alternatives, especially since Adobe moved to using a yearly subscription based licensing model.
However many students are choosing to illegally download and crack (obtain a product key and activate the software) the software on their own BYO machines, as they wish to use industry standard applications for their learning, without handing over several hundreds dollars. Most students would be prepared to pay for software if it was priced within their price bracket, and wasn’t a continuous cost (Gan & Koh, 2006, p. 647).
Whilst there isn’t a lot that schools can do to combat this practice especially since BYO devices are not school property, schools can ensure they educate their students about the relevant piracy laws and consequences for breaking them, including illegally downloading software (Roblyer & Doering, 2013, p. 19).
Schools can try and make this software cheaper by purchasing class lab licensing instead, which could be shared across multiple year groups, reducing the number of license required and sharing the cost across multiple students (Gan & Koh, 2006).
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