2016-03-20 Technology and the Blurring of Boundaries from Frederick Lane A 45-minute presentation delivered on March 20, 2016 during the final general session of the annual conference of the National Association of Community College Teacher Education Programs in Chicago, IL. If you are interested in discussing a presentation or professional development program for your organization…
2016-03-18 Ethics & Social Media from Frederick Lane A 90-minute presentation delivered at the National Association of Community College Teacher Education Programs (NACCTEP) on March 18, 2016 in Chicago, IL. If you are interested in discussing a presentation or professional development program for your organization on this topic, please contact me for information regarding my…
As I travel around the United States lecturing to school districts, educators, students, and parents, I am often asked about the definition of the word “cybertrap.” While I can’t claim credit for coining the word, I have developed a body of work using the term, which so far has not been formally defined. I think…
At first blush (if anyone actually does that anymore), this seemed like a fairly straightforward, technology-facilitated teacher-student boundary violation. But then the legal documents began flying … Sex and a Guilty Plea In May 2014, a 17-year-old student showed a cellphone video to the principal of Richard King High School in Corpus Christi, Texas. The…
Invisible Target: Breaking the Cycle of Educator Sexual Abuse. Andrea Clemens. 2015. Hickory Nut Publishing. 302 pages. [Source: Review copy from author] In the fall of 1981, Andrea Clemens entered the ninth grade and was upset to find out that one of her instructors was Robert Baker, a science teacher at Norwood Junior High School.…
One of the ongoing challenges in investigating cases of educator misconduct is that so many of them involve text messages, which are a particularly ephemeral form digital evidence. Unlike files on a hard drive, which typically linger long after they are “deleted,” or emails, which are routinely archived in multiple locations (just ask Ollie North!),…
Nearly 900 years ago, in 1154, an English bishop named Nicholas Breakspeare was elected Pope, and took the name Adrian IV. He is thus far the only Englishman to serve as the Holy Pontiff. Pope Adrian IV only served for five years before his death in 1159, and left at most a modest footprint on…
In May 2014, a substitute teacher at Highland Park High School in Highland Park, IL (a suburb just north of Chicago) raised concerns that two of his students had been cheating. Following an internal investigation, the high school not only sided with the students but told Steven Habay, then 40, that he was being released…
Over the last couple of years, I’ve dived deeply into the topic of teacher misconduct. The cases I’ve studied and summarized have ranged widely, from the merely sad to the reprehensible to the truly horrifying. One thing is abundantly clear: we need to improve teacher candidate education and professional development to better instruct educators about…
Over the past six months, the Utah Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force conducted an investigation into the online activities of Jeffrey Thomas Patterson, a seventh-grade science teacher at the West Hills Middle School in West Jordan, Utah (a suburb of Salt Lake City). On Wednesday, November 4, law enforcement officials executed a search warrant…
