Chapter+7+-+Web+2.0


 * Chapter 7 - Online Safety and Security -- Web 2.0**

For elementary schools, Deer Park Elementary School in Fairfax, VA developed the Cyber Awareness Survey to initiate the conversation with students. 80 to 90% of student respondents in grades 3 and 4, responded correctly to the quiz. I thought this was interesting for elementary schools, since kids are using the Internet for social networking at early ages.

Acceptable Use Policies were touched upon. Obvisouly the policies outline the guidelines, procedures, and responsiblities for using school technology. They mentioned that the policies need to be revised as new online tools and equipment become available. Every school should have a revised policy in place. At the present time, our school district is in the process of revising our district AUP.

Ethical behavior was examined and it seems that people really know what is right and wrong when it comes to downloading items from the Internet such as music and other works that have copyright.

A "Teacher and Student" code of ethics is presented:

1. Seek Truth and Express It -- Teachers should be fair, honest, and courageous in gathering, interpreting, and expressing information for the benefit of others. 2. Minimize the Harm -- Ethical teachers and students treat information sources, subjects, colleagues, and information consumers as human beings deserving of respect. 3. Be Accountable -- Teachers and students are accountable to their readers, listeners, and viewers, and to each other. 4. Respect Information and Its Infrastruture -- Information, in the Information Age, is property. Information is the fabric that defines much of what we do from day to day, and this rich and poetent fabric is fragile.

Blogs, wikis, and other content-sharing sites can be powerful learning tools, yet many administrators have restrictions about their use.
 * Administrative Restrictions**

Parents are often unaware of the problems and have few strategies to resolve them. Schools need to reach out to parents. Our district did offer a parent night in December on the issue of cyber safety, but I'm not sure how many parents came out for the presentation. Parents can be directed to http://kids.getnetwise.org/safetyguide/ (The Online Safety Guide from GetNetWise).
 * Parental Involvement**

The Web is a tool, a place to check e-mail, get information, and shop. For teens, it's a place to hang out with friends, especially for real-time communication. Many school offer NetTrekker ([|http://school.nettrekker.com)] to help combat the problem of inappropriate sites on the Internet. With NetTrekker, more than 180,000 educator-selected, standards-based online resources including an image database for safe, porngraphy-free images. Our district, like many other districts set up firewalls and barriers to help protect our students from Internet dangers and to protect our network from potential hackers and inappropriate Web sites.
 * Blocking**

With the vast number of places students can place images and view them, Flickr and YouTube seem to be popular among students. Since photos at Flickr have Creative Commons copyright licenses, it's clear what uses are allowed for each picture. In addition to being a popular Web site for people to share personal photographs, Flickr also allows photos to be tagged, which makes it a good respository for bloggers' photos. Handling of student photographs on a school's website is an issue, and it is definitely an issue here at AGHS. Schools need to comply with FERPA, the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act http://www.ed.gov/policy/gen/guid/fpco/ferpa/index.html. Our district's policy for student photos needs to comply with FERPA.
 * Image Sharing**

Need I say more. . . popular among students of all ages. IM is one of the most difficult applications to control because it attempts to hide within other network services, borrowing assigned TCP port numbers for its own communicaiton. While MySpace offers filtering tools and protection, and parents have to decide what to do about access, school districts and libraries that receive federal funds must comply with CIPA. One of the regulation's requirements states that images "harmful to minors" must be blocked.
 * Instant Messaging & Social Networking**

What happens when great tools are blocked?
 * Other Alternatives**

Elgg http://www.elgg.org/, a hybrid of blogging, e-portfolios, and social networking, provides an environment for students to create their own learning space and connect to others, forming online learning communities.

Another solution is to place Web 2.0 tools on intranets so they are behind district firewalls. This limits students to collaborating only with youngsters who are already in close proximity, but it provides access to new tools and security. There are wiki applications that districts can install and run from their own servers such as Socialtext http://www.socialtext.com/ and TWiki [|http://www.twiki.org/.] Users can set up accounts, then write and revise their collaborative work. There's also Think.com http://www.think.com/en/, though not free, which provides online tools for education that are hosted remotely but that provide access only to teacher-designated users. Think.com allows teachers to design and coach projects for their students to work on collaboratively. Teachers can communicate with other educators around the world to share ideas and projects.