DICT urges teachers to avoid ‘likes-based’ school projects

This photo, taken June 11, 2014, shows Facebook’s “like” symbol at the entrance to the company’s campus in Menlo Park, California. (Photo by JEFF CHIU / AP)

MANILA, Philippines — The Department of Information and Communications Technology (DICT) on Sunday called on teachers to avoid giving school projects and outputs wherein the grades depend on the number of “likes” they receive on social media.

DICT Secretary Eliseo Rio made the call after receiving complaints from parents.

“This was the common complaints of parents during the Digital Parenting seminars conducted by the DICT Cybersecurity Bureau. Some projects assigned to students required them to post in social media and are graded on the number of likes they get,” Rio said a text message to INQUIRER.net.

Rio added that projects posted on social media could expose students to issues such as breach of privacy or cyberbullying through the comments left on their outputs.

“This exposes the students to cybersecurity issues like cyberbullying, getting comments that may undermine their confidence, and worst, getting private details of the minor students exposed to strangers,” Rio said.

“Our students must be protected from unnecessary dangers in social media. Projects like these must be contained in a secured platform,” he added.

The DICT earlier called for teachers to avoid using social media to disseminate information on school-related matters.

Gen Macalinao, DICT information technology officer, said email could also be to disseminate information.

“I experienced this through my 16-year-old [son]… If I tell him to stop on social media, he’ll show me the chat of the teacher and show me that the teacher actually created a group and post the assignments there,” Macalinao said.

READ: DICT proposes ban on social media use for classroom assignments

(Editor: Alexander T. Magno)