Acceptable Use Policy

 

Some rights reserved by Poughkeepsie Day School

Creating an AUP was a valuable process to go through. I was lucky to have 2 other coetailers at my school.  The first thing that we decided to do, was to work on the area of the AUP in the division that we teach.  Karen Robb and I both work in the elementary division, so we worked on the PK to Grade 2 and Grade 3-5 AUP’s.  Christina Botbyl completed the middle/high school AUP, check out her blog to see the great work she did on this.

Karen and I began by talking with our technology specialist and getting a copy of our current AUP for elementary, which we all decided with the 1:1 iPad initiative starting next fall would need to be updated and made more accessible to teachers in the school.  We then read AUP’s from other schools and decided on a few criteria to follow when creating our school’s PreK to Grade 2 and Grade 3-5 AUP’s:

1.     We like the positive statements and would try to make as many statements as possible “I will” statements. 

2.    We wanted clear, concise rules that could easily be understood by students, parents and teachers. 

3.    We want students to be accountable to the rules, so we included a signature section for students and parents to ensure the rules have been discussed at home.

These rules will need to be posted in every classroom, the library and other areas where technology will be used.  It will up to each teacher to teach each rule thoroughly and reinforce them many times throughout the school year.  The PreK-Grade2 and Grade 3-5 AUP’s are quite similar, but we changed the language in the Grade 3-5 AUP in a couple areas as older students learn about copyright laws and how to give credit when using pictures and information from the internet. 

As we are moving to a 1:1 iPad school, we have integration specialists joining our elementary division next year to help in this implementation process.  With the completion of this assignment, we have begun the process of creating the PreK – Grade 2 and Grade 3-5 AUP’s, but it is our intention to get the input of more staff and our integration specialists when they arrive in the fall, so they can add their expertise before these AUP’s are officially put in place.

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Janette Haggith, May 12th 2012 | Tags: , ,
Posted in Course 2

Hyperlinks

Some rights reserved by peyri

Once in a while I get motivated to do ‘spring cleaning’.  I start on one project like cleaning out a closet, but get easily distracted when I go to put something from the closet in the kitchen where it goes. Then I see something in the kitchen that needs organizing, so I start on that and work away at that for a while. I then remember the big closet project, so I go back to the closet and often get distracted again when moving in another room of the house.  I still end up cleaning the closet, but along the way, I get some other tasks completed as well.  That is a bit how I see hyperlinks working.  I love reading blogs or articles and clicking on the hyperlinks to deepen my understanding of the topic, see a picture or read a short bio of the person that is being referenced…, but there are times that the hyperlinks can interfere with the flow of the original article I was reading, if I let them.

I have only learned how to add hyperlinks since taking this course and am looking forward to deepening my understanding of their use.  I see the value of using links and know I will be using them countless times in the years to come.  Even though like I mentioned earlier, hyperlinks can be distracting I feel as though they lend themselves to differentiation quite well.  If I am reading an article or a blog and see a term that I know hyperlinked, then I would ignore the hyperlink and keep reading, but if I am unfamiliar with the term I can easily click on the link and get a definition.  If I am in a hurry and reading an article I can skip the hyperlinks and come back to the article later and explore the links to deeper my understanding.

As I spend time on my Google Reader, I have found many links in the blogs to be informative.  I would be sad to think I would have missed out on a particular video or interesting article if I had not clicked on the link.  One such example is from David Truss’ blog where he links a TEDx Talk by Kim Cofino.  I thoroughly enjoyed her talk and gained some new insights by watching it.  I am never bored when I take time on my Google Reader and I always learn something new or feel challenged in some way.

I will end with a quote that I totally agree with from David Bullio’s blog entitled Modern Man’s Friends: Web Browsers and Hyperlinks:

For me, using hyperlinks allows me to dig deeper into the subject and I like to think that I use them to help me gather more information that will deepen my understanding of whatever topic I am inquiring into. One big reason I believe the “newspaper” is losing the war to the web is that one can’t easily read more about an articles subjects and/or topics as usually when the article is done in a newspaper, it is done. Hyperlinking allows us to truly gather so much more information than has been traditionally accessible to readers that it should actually come as no surprise as to why the web has become a place where people go for knowledge.

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Janette Haggith, May 2nd 2012 | Tags: ,
Posted in Course 2

Cyberbullying

 

http://www.flickr.com/photos/girlwithbutterflywings/

 

Parents and teachers need to work together to educate our students and make them aware of cyberbullying.  At school this education has to start early.  All students need clear guidelines when using technology and firm consequences when breaking these guidelines.  Students need to understand what cyberbullying is and the impact it has on others.  There are great resources to teach this available online such as commonsensemedia.org and brainpop.com to name a few. It is also important to take the time to create a classroom community where all members of the class feel respected and safe.  Being diligent about emphasizing the importance of Character Education and teaching children how to be caring, responsible citizens that show integrity is important. 

 

Parents play a key role in educating their children about cyberbullying as well.   They need  an awareness of cyberbullying and the tools and resources available out there to help them.  I have listed some websites below that our technology specialist shared with parents at a meeting about cyberbullying.  The sites share many things that will help educate parents from the teen chat decoder where you can type in things (lol or pos) and the decoder will give you the meanings (laugh out loud, parent over shoulder), a parent guide to facebook, definitions of cyberbullying, online safety tips and many more.  When equipping parents with these helpful websites it gives them more information and opens the lines of communication between them and their children even more.  The importance of conversation was highlighted in a quote from the article, Talk With Your Kids About Being Safer Online,

 Although there are plenty of tools that can be used to try to control or monitor what your kids are doing online, the best approach for most parents is that oldest of tools called conversation. Having an occasional chat with your kids about how they’re using technology can go a long way towards them safer, and learning more about actual risks can help keep you saner.

Websites for parents and teachers:

http://www.commonsensemedia.org/about-us/our-mission 

http://www.safekids.com/

http://www.teenchatdecoder.com/

http://www.netsmartz411.org/

http://www.facebookforparents.org/

http://www.brainpop.com/

So the responsibility of educating students about cyberbullying lies with the teachers and parents.  We need to begin by modeling acceptable use and coaching our students/children to do the same. 

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Janette Haggith, April 24th 2012 | Tags: , , ,
Posted in Course 2

Unclear about Copyright

Some rights reserved by opensourceway

 

I taught in Canada for several years where copyright laws were clear on print materials.  We had big signs hanging over our photocopiers listing the rules of what you could legally copy.   Now teaching in Kuwait, my Canadian copyright rules for print materials are no longer adhered to.

I have not kept up with the copyright laws in our digital age where so much information is available quickly and easily, and after this week of reading and reflecting about copyright, I have many questions and concerns.

Why is it so easy to illegally download music, tv shows and newly released movies? How do we teach students not to do it, when it is so easily accessible?  How do we stop from doing it ourselves?  Do we stifle creativity putting barriers on everything? How do we avoid letting students use pictures from Google Images without citing?  Is sharing you tube videos in class okay when often their content source is unclear?

Copyright, giving credit, and citing sources when using technology was an area I was okay to be a bit unclear on.  Sometimes not knowing what you are doing is wrong, makes it easier to do.  Now that I am becoming more aware of digital copyright issues, it creates more work and more worry.  It took me more time to link two photos to my blog entry last week than it did to write my reflection.  I am hesitant to use photos in my blog entry, now that I know I have give credit.  I am glad to be learning how to give credit to individual’s work, but am just saying that it makes it more time consuming.    I know it will become habit and get easier the more I do it.  (I had to rewatch Jeff’s video on Adding An Image and Citing Source in A Blog Post for this blog entry too).

As Wesley Froger wrote in his blog reflection called, Understanding and Respecting Copyright is a Problem For Many:

 As educators, we need accurate and practical guidelines to follow when using and re-using media in student multimedia projects as well as our own.

The creative commons website and especially the video explaining it are valuable resources for students and staff.   Comfight.com is also a good tool and one students could use easily.  This course is challenging me and makes me want to use technology properly so I can be a positive role model for students.

Some rights reserved by laihiu

 

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Janette Haggith, April 21st 2012 | Tags: , ,
Posted in Course 2

Privacy Online??

 

http://www.flickr.com/photos/rocrowley/

A few years ago we were traveling in Beijing and left our camera in a taxi.  It was close to the end of our trip, so we had many pictures of our family hiking on the Great Wall, shopping in the markets, and hanging out in Beijing.  We also still had Halloween pictures on the camera and other family random shots.  Of course we never recovered our camera and although our family is quite calm, it bothered me a bit at the time that someone has part of our history and could do whatever they wanted with our photos.  Did these photos get erased?  Shared with others? Put on the internet?… (I should mention that we had two cameras with us, so we still have some great shots of our visit to The Great Wall.. thankfully!).

 

http://www.flickr.com/photos/o5com/

I’ve never really been too concerned about my privacy on line.  But this course has really made me think more about the privacy issue.  I’m still not really worried about myself as much as I am about my children and students.  I don’t think there is such a thing as privacy online.  Many children have phones with cameras and video cameras in them and although phones aren’t always allowed at school, we know they are at school.  I worry about cyber bullying for our students.  The article by John Brownlee’s which discussed the app ”Girls Around Me” was eye opening. It is a good teaching tool to show our older students and children that they need to be aware apps like this are available and I’m sure more are on the way.  We need to educate our students so they are aware of their lack of privacy online.  We need to teach students to read the fine print  and carefully research privacy settings for online use.

So as we read about in past weeks, it is up to us to ensure we have positive digital footprints.  We need to be proactive and be known online to future employers and associates.  As Jeff mentioned in his blog post, Let Your Presence Be Known ,

 ”There is not only power in the knowledge, but there is also power of the presence. Get social, get connected, and let your presence be known!”

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Janette Haggith, April 12th 2012 | Tags: ,
Posted in Course 2

Digital Footprints

 

Well, I just spent the last several minutes googling myself.  I will admit it is not the first time I have done it, but with all the blog posts and reflections from this course showing up, I have many more hits on my name.  I guess I could say my digital footprint is growing.

Googling someone’s name can lead to some interesting discoveries.  I now wish I had run those few road races a little faster.  I guess there is no way I can exaggerate my race times by saying I ran the half marathon in under 2 hours when my times are clearly evident on the web for all to see.  Two of my children are in their 20’s and for the past few years, whenever I hear them mention someone they ‘like’, I google that person to find out what I can about them.  I have given some of my young student teachers advice about cleaning up their facebook when they are job hunting.  It is advice I also pass on to my children, but instead of “cleaning up facebook”, we need to be more careful about what goes on the web about us in the first place.  I tell my children not to post the pictures taken at the grad party unless you are fine with everyone having access to them.   More and more employers are checking out the digital footprints of potential employees.

Our students need to see the importance of having positive digital footprints and not be scared to use the internet.  I do think that teachers need more professional development in this area so that they can pass on internet safety to students in a better way.  In his article, Positive Digital Footprints, Ferritier says, “Although some students are at risk because of careless choices—openly talking about sex in digital forums, posting inappropriate pictures of themselves or their friends to the Web, or failing to act when confronted with dangerous situations in social media spaces—those risks are often poorly understood by teachers, who receive little training about how to effectively introduce Internet safety and new media literacies to students (Online Safety and Technology Working Group, 2010).  Scare tactics like those my 7th grade informants described are not only ineffective at changing student behaviors (Online Safety and Technology Working Group, 2010), but they also prevent students from seeing digital footprints as potential tools for learning, finding like-minded peers, and building reputations as thoughtful contributors to meaningful digital conversations.”

We know that potential employees, boyfriends/girlfriends, coworkers are googled, and as a result we need to showcase ourselves by building up our digital footprints in a positive way. 

As technology expert Will Richardson (2008) explains in the same article, “One of my worst fears as [my children] grow older is that they won’t be Googled well. … that when a certain someone (read: admissions officer, employer, potential mate) enters “Tess Richardson” into the search line of the browser, what comes up will be less than impressive. That a quick surf through the top five hits will fail to astound with examples of her creativity, collaborative skills, and change-the-world work. Or, even worse, that no links about her will come up at all. (p. 16)”

The term digital shadow is new to me.  It does make you think about how important it is to make good daily choices and it is a realization that nothing that happens is truly private.  As Sarah Perez’s article, Calculate Your Digital Footprint with New Tool from EMC reads, “But this new research shows that we need to be aware of much more than just online mentions. What we need to concern ourselves with now, is the other half of our digital footprint. This “ambient content,” the research team concluded, comprises of passive contributions, something termed as your “digital shadow.”  Your shadow includes things like images of you on a surveillance camera, your bank records, your retail and airline purchase records, your telephone records, your medical database entries, copies of hospital scans, information about your web searches, general backup data, information about credit card purchases, etc.”

We expect our students to demonstrate all the traits of the Learner Profile, but we as their teachers need to be role models to them by consistently exhibiting the traits ourselves.  This is not just at school, but in all aspects of our lives.  It is our job to educate our students so that when they are googled they will have information show up about them that they are proud of and shows their true character.

 

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Janette Haggith, March 27th 2012 | Tags: , ,
Posted in Course 2

Course 1, Final Project

Demonstrating the Learner Profile Through A Photo Story

An important understanding for me from Course 1 is that we need to provide students with authentic learning experiences.  Students need to have a purpose in what they do and then they will see the value in their assignments and take more ownership of them.  We should not think of technology as an afterthought or an add-on, it should be embedded into our daily activities.  Our school is an IBO World School and my lesson is for students to demonstrate how they exhibit traits of the Learner Profile using the program Photo Story 3. 

Background:  Students had some discussions in class about the Learner Profile (this is not a new concept for them because it is a focus in every classroom,  every year) and brainstormed ways that they could demonstrate each of the traits of the Learner Profile (caring, balanced, thinker, inquirer, knowledgeable, risk-taker, principled, open-minded, communicator and reflective).  Students were asked to bring in photos of them personally, or use images from the internet (and put on a USB) demonstrating some of the traits of the Learner Profile.

Our school is starting a 1:1 ipad program in September 2012, but for now our students go to a computer lab for lessons.  Teaching students to be independent is always a goal, so instead of standing at the front of the room and lecturing students, all students, using headphones and a computer watched the Photo Story 3 Tutorial and completed their own photo story at their own pace, using peers and teachers to help them if needed.  They are used to using tutorials as a way of learning new programs.  Below is an example of a one student’s photo story.

PhotoStory.Emma

Reflections:  Students enjoyed creating their own photo story and improved their knowledge of the Learner Profile and learned some new technology skills while doing so.  The Learner Profile became more personal to them as they were able to demonstrate ways they exhibit it.  Most students were able to work independently, but collaboration between students is encouraged, so they could run ideas past each other and ask for help when they needed it.  We learn by doing and students who help others gain a deeper understanding for themselves.  When students completed their photo story they wrote written reflections on how they demonstrated the Learner Profile. They addressed traits of the Learner Profile that are more difficult for them to demonstrate and set a goal to improve in that area. Students reflected on the Photo Story experience and assessed their learning of the program. 

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Janette Haggith, March 15th 2012 | Tags: , ,
Posted in Course 1

Looking Through The Technology Lense

I have spent many hours with my google reader over the last few weeks reading articles and blog entries that clarify for me the importance of trying to keep up with our changes in our learning landscape.  As many of the articles and blogs point out, changes are taking place with our students in this collaboration age whether we embrace it or not.

 

As I work with each team of teachers planning their upcoming units of inquiry I am encouraging them to look at their plans through the lense of technology. 

 How can we use technology throughout our units in authentic ways? 

After reading about several online collaborative projects I see that many opportunities are out there for our students.  The collaboration projects would be motivating for students, develop more cultural awareness and improve their literacy and technology skills.  I am anxious to join an online project for the experience and many benefits for myself and the students.  The 1001 Tales Project, an elementary writing task that I am interested in provides students opportunities to write their own stories and read and reflect on other students’ stories from different cultures. 

I like to provide students with authentic ‘real-life’ learning experiences.  I feel the more authentic it is, the more student engagement you have.  When students are motivated they buy in and put forth more effort as they see the benefit of working through the task.  I have seen Dan Meyer’s Tedx talk before and each time it deeply impacts me.  Meyer’s math problems are excellent examples of problems we can give our students to promote critical thinking.  I will suggest to our teaching teams (6 teachers at each grade level) that each teacher create some meaningful math problems and then share them with the team so we have a collection of meaningful problems to draw on.  Collaborating with other teachers as well as using the web to research collaborate projects can better prepare our students for the future.  The Horizon Report states that ,”The ways we design learning experiences must reflect the growing importance of innovation and creativity as professional skills. Innovation and creativity must not be linked only to arts subjects, either; these skills are equally important in scientific inquiry, entrepreneurship and other areas as well.”

Embracing the fact that the learning landscape is changing quickly is a difficult realization.  It is hard to change and many teachers are reluctant to do so.  I want students to become positive, contributing global citizens and have realized recently the importance of teaching with technology embedded in our day.  As the Horizon Report states, “Technology continues to profoundly affect the way we work, collaborate, communicate, and succeed.  Increasingly, technology skills are also critical to success in almost every arena, and those who are more facile with technology will advance while those without access or skills will not.”

 

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Janette Haggith, March 6th 2012 | Tags: , ,
Posted in Course 1

Listen To The Experts

This week has been even more eye opening for me.   I am getting more and more interested in reading and learning about technology and the impact on our lives and the lives of our students.  I came to the school for some quiet time on the weekend to work on this course for an  hour or two and 4 hours later, I noticed I had got caught up in the informative blogs of my colleagues as well as all the interesting information on my RSS Reader.  I am lucky to have another coetailer at my school and we talk daily about what we are reading and learning from this course.   I have started sharing articles and websites with other staff members who are also interested.  I feel like I am engaging in learning with my colleagues and working on one of the goals for week 4, “model collaborative knowledge construction by engaging in learning with students, colleagues, and other is face-to-face and virtual environments”. 

 I have titled this blog “Listen to the Experts”, because I feel that we really need to be listening to the students.  They are the experts. In his article Shaping Tech for the Classroom, Marc Prensky looks at the four-step process of technology adoption, “dabbling, doing old things in old ways, doing old things in new ways and doing new things in new ways”.  He states that, “resisting today’s digital technology will be truly lethal to our children’s education. They live in an incredibly fast-moving world significantly different than the one we grew up in.”  I agree with Prensky when he suggests how we can move forward, “First, consult the students. They are far ahead of their educators in terms of taking advantage of digital technology and using it to their advantage. We cannot, no matter how hard we try or how smart we are (or think we are), invent the future education of our children for them. The only way to move forward effectively is to combine what they know about technology with what we know and require about education.” 

 I have been in many discussions with my colleagues about integrating technology better and more efficiently, but this week I will make a point of talking to more students and listening to their ideas and suggestions.  As our school implements a 1:1 ipad program next year, I for one will advocate that students be a big part of the process.  As a “digital immigrant”, I can learn a lot from our “digital natives”.

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Janette Haggith, February 29th 2012 | Tags: , ,
Posted in Course 1

Integrating Technology

As I reflect on the NETS website, I see to effectively integrate technology into our classrooms there are many things to take into consideration.  My school is beginning a technology initiative by integrating ipads next year, and I hope they keep in mind many of the essential conditions to effectively leverage technology for learning mentioned on this website, a few of which include, a shared vision, equitable access, skilled personnel, implementation planning and consistent and adequate funding.

As we begin some professional development with our ipads, (all teachers were given an ipad this year to explore and get familiar with) our staff are all at varying stages of expertise ranging from very little to a great deal.  We are counting on our administration to provide us with opportunities to learn more, but I feel as an educator I have to place a great deal of the responsibility of learning more about technology on myself (this course is certainly helping).  As the website states, “As technology integration continues to increase in our society, it is paramount that teachers possess the skills and behaviors of digital age professionals. Moving forward, teachers must become comfortable being co-learners with their students and colleagues around the world.”

As educators acquire the technological skills needed I’m sure we will realize that most of our students are more comfortable with using technology than most of us are.   We do not need to throw out all our good teaching practice (providing students with opportunities to think critically, be problem solvers, show international mindedness and reflect on their learning) as it goes hand in hand with using technology.  According to the website, “Simply being able to use technology is no longer enough. Today’s students need to be able to use technology to analyze, learn, and explore. Digital age skills are vital for preparing students to work, live, and contribute to the social and civic fabric of their communities”.

The task of effectively implementing and keeping up with technology is daunting.  It is nice to know that my school is moving forward and I intend to remain positive and take on the challenge.  It is fun to be a life-long learner.

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Janette Haggith, February 25th 2012 | Tags: , ,
Posted in Course 1
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