Policies and the law regarding technology in schools

This week seemed to cover a wide variety of topics from when and who to tag, what happens when we have been tagged,  how we present ourselves and how that can be seen as narcissistic, ethical issues that arise when using technology, the laws that technology policies are trying to uphold and how they might be failing that.

Tagging to exclude someone or purposely embarrass them hadn't occurred to me, though I am vigilant to either not tag people when I post pictures or to make sure I have checked first. I recently visited friends who have made a conscience effort to not have their daughter online. As I wanted to post pictures about my trip they said she could be in the picture, but not to tag them in it so that it wasn’t connected to their daughter. That seemed like a reasonable request and one that I was happy to comply with. 

Understanding what digital citizenship is seems to be the first step in creating a policy that will work. This video from Common Sense Education is a quick snapshot that introduces the idea of digital citizenship.

Enforcing technological use policies seems to be consistently ineffective. This is possibly due to poor writing that make them so vague they are basically not enforceable. I think the policies should have enough details to express what they are trying to cover and have specifics of what is and is not acceptable with appropriate consequences provided. The policy for my current school (Middle School Student Handbook, 2017) actually does have details for what is expected and not and has some consequences, though I don’t think the consequences are ever enforced. This makes the policy as ineffective as the very vague ones my peers have found. 

I found a blog about the difficulty in reading privacy policies for apps and software online. It mentions that often these documents are written at a reading level that is much too high for the average person. Although I am not sure that school policies are written in the same way, they may be too high of a reading level for the full student body it represents. The blog suggests ways that parents can be more successful with the policy wording and suggestions for companies when writing the policies. These suggestions could be used by schools when they are writing their policies as well. 

I like the idea of having high school students help create the policy as well as creating further pieces to go with the policy to help explain it to younger students, as was suggested by the Office of the Educational Technology. This would create more student buy-in as well as help with the language that was relatable to all. I think the students should be part of a partnership with teachers, administration and board officials so that all parts that need to be represented in the policy including legalities are covered. 

Common Sense Education. (2017). What is digital citizenship? [website]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mbbuLFUSd0A

Dubai American Academy Middle School. (September 2017). Middle School Student Handbook. Retrieved from http://media.gemseducation.com/media/37113/middle_school_student_handbook_-_2017-18.pdf

Lee, I. (2018, July 17). It’s not you; privacy policies are difficult to read. [blog]. Retrieved from https://www.commonsense.org/education/blog/its-not-you-privacy-policies-are-difficult-to-read 

Office of Educational Technology. (n.d.). Student-centered acceptable use policy. Retrieved from https://tech.ed.gov/stories/student-centered-acceptable-use-policy/

Digital Wellness

This week we focused on how social media is impacting young people. I was shocked to see after recording my technology use for a day that although most of the times I checked my phone for a brief period of time that over the whole day it added up to about 6 hours. Clearly social media and technology is impacting adults as well as young people! 

Teaching middle school students, I wasn’t shocked by most of what was presented in the video Being Thirteen (2015), though they are meaner online to fit in or get social standing than I fully realized. One idea that stuck out through the readings and videos was that although the way they socialize may have changed, young people might actually be just as social as previous generations. Previously young people would be on the phone or outside playing with the neighbourhood children instead of all on personal devices. Young people just want to be social and when parents restrict their free time with friends, many turn to their social media to get that same connection. The immediate feedback provided by social media can amplify a person’s fear of missing out (FOMO) and they seem to check in with the different apps more regularly (CNN, 2015). 

An increase in bullying, particularly cyber-bullying was suggested and although I agree that cyber-bullying has increased, I am not totally sure bullying in general has. Due to the ever-connected nature of social media, maybe the bullying has increased because now it isn’t just at school but also during home time. I also think that there may be an increase in “frenemies” due to the use of social media. As mentioned in the article by Signe (2012) girls are bullying in less obvious ways by seeming to be someone’s friend, but then setting up the other girl to be embarrassed to the point of acting out and being punished. This behaviour is often unnoticed by adults and the original bullies are not often caught as they don’t actually lash out.

This week has made me think about how we are using technology and how interactions may be changing because of it. I have shared quite a few tidbits of the videos and articles for this week with friends and family because the points have stuck out for me.

CNN. (October 5th, 2015). Being Thirteen:Inside the Secret World of Teens. Retrieved from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t-9LtTtkg04

Whitson, S., (2012). When friendship is used as a weapon: Using life space crisis intervention skills to confront bullying. Reclaiming Children and Youth, 21(3). Retrieved from https://search-proquest-com.qe2a-proxy.mun.ca/docview/1326253635?accountid=12378

Netiquette

This week we started to think of where our "line" of acceptable use of technology was.  After reading the other posts I decided that my email line was more lenient as I will respond to emails later in the evening, but less lenient for cell phones as if they are out when they aren't supposed to be I will take them immediately for the day. As part of my "line", I also teach students what is expected in an email - a greeting, the body of the email, a closing statement - as well as reminding them to spell-check, not use all capitals, etc.
The core rules of netiquette, although written quite a while ago, still seem to apply to how we should behave online as well as what we should teach our students. I think 2 of the most important ones I follow are to remember the human and to act online as you would in person.

“Think B4 U Post” by Mitchell Norris is licensed under CC BY 2.0

There are many posters that are available online that could be used to remind students about the rules of netiquette. This particular one goes into a little more detail than I may want to display in my classroom, though the 5 bullet points are certainly what I would want my students to think about.

Teaching netiquette wasn't a priority for my class this year as I was teaching as part of a team and we didn't ever plan a distinct lesson on it. In previous years, when I was the only one teaching a subject, I built it into my class a little more as a direct lesson. I think it was a disservice to my classes to not explicitly teach some netiquette or digital citizenship and will try one of the provided resources next year. My students are familiar with Brainpop and so I could build a lesson using that video and some questions to help students be aware of what netiquette is. Another resource we were introduced to was a game that taught digital citizenship (Digital Compass). Although the content of the game was addressing useful issues for middle and high school, the graphics of the game were more juvenile and would probably not be well received by my middle school students.

The idea of blind spots, or not being aware how certain aspects of your online identity can affect other parts of your identity, is new to me in that it has a specific name. I am aware of how my affiliates could affect my online identity and have unfriended some people on facebook because of where I live and what they post. Living in the Middle East, there is an understood and explicitly posted set of rules of online conduct. Although I generally feel that the government won't bother with a lowly individual, I want to make sure that there isn't anything I am connected to that could be cause for concern online. I have removed connections with people who are very vocal against governments or certain groups of people so that it is not misconstrued that I share the same opinions.

The dark and light discussion from this week was about using real names or being anonymous online. My first thought of this topic was that you should use your name, but as I went through the readings, my thought is that online names are no longer just real name or not. As pointed out in Boyd's book (2014), young adults often poke fun at the required name or birth date requirement to ascertain a level of control over their lives. When a site requires a real name, people will often combine first and last names or use initials. Students will often choose birth dates that are humorous (like creating an age of 69) to be allowed access to a site. As someone who chooses to use a shortened version of my name, I think the idea of having to use a real name is silly in most cases. I never use my full name, although I suppose Liz is a real name. But where do we draw the line between "real" name that is a nickname and a completely different nickname or username? In the case study by van der Nagal & Firth (2015), they compare how some sites require real names to prevent any un-civility or trolling as well as the merits of having sites with anonymous logins. Having read through I can see the benefits of both sites and think there is a place for both. I agree that Facebook should be somewhat "real" names - whatever people go by should be what they are called there. When using such a platform that is going to have personal pictures, real names seem appropriate instead of "anonymous" - though the real name may be whatever the person posting the pictures goes by such as a nickname, or a dragname or slightly mixed up name to prevent easy searching. In the example of mixed up name, I know several teachers who put capitals or spaces in their names in not the right places to make themselves not as easily searchable by their students. I think this is fine as a measure of privacy to keep their personal and professional lives separate.

In conclusion, this weeks readings and discussions provided some reinforcement of ideas that I already had as well as some new ideas about why people may choose different names or actually be in an anonymous forum.


References:

Boyd, D. (2014). it's complicated: the social lives of networked teens. USA: Yale University Press.

Brain Pop Digital Etiquette. [https://www.brainpop.com/technology/digitalcitizenship/digitaletiquette/]

Digital compass. [https://www.digitalcompass.org/game/]

The core rules of netiquette. [http://www.albion.com/netiquette/corerules.html]

van der Nagal, E. and Firth, J. (2015) Anonymity, pseudonymity, and the agency of online identity. First Monday, 20(3). Retrieved from:  http://firstmonday.org/ojs/index.php/fm/article/view/5615/4346

Doom and Gloom or Rainbows and Unicorns?

“Light side, dark side” by Frederic Spycher is licensed under CC BY 2.0

This week was the introduction to the Digital Citizenship course. We were asked to think of which side of the technology continuum we fell on - the dark side or the light side.
Although I try to incorporate technology into my class as much as possible but I don't teach digital citizenship as often as I should, I would say that I am either a dark side - beware of all the pearls of the internet! or a light side ostrich and I have my head buried in the sand and if we don't talk about the problems, they won't be there. I am hoping throughout this course to come up with some strategies to teach about the dark side while embracing the light side and minimize my ostrich!

I chose to read an article about 5 ways educators can become digital citizenship leaders.

The 5 ways listed are: 

- Model appropriate online connections 

- Support colleagues who are just getting on board with edtech

- Connect students to opportunities to model positive digital citizenship

- Get families in the game

- Embed digital citizenship in classroom norms

The idea that appropriate behaviour needs to be modelled as well as ongoing resonates with me. Although students may have quite extensive access to it, they do not intuitively know what to do with the technology. They may only know the surface features of certain products or how it immediately is useful to them.  

Getting families involved by providing ways for them to interact without committing to coming in to school will probably help with the connection and not alienate anyone who is unable to come into the school. 

I hadn’t thought about the idea that helping colleagues would increase one’s digital citizenship, but I like the idea of helping others. I have offered in school PD on GAFE as well as PowerSchool to try to make my coworkers lives easier when using these technologies. 

 Randles, J. (2018). 5 ways educators can become digital citizenship leaders. International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE). June 6, 2018 https://www.iste.org/explore/articleDetail?articleid=2131&category=Digital-citizenship&article=