One of the sections of the Act amends the law to state:
as part of its Internet safety policy is educating minors about appropriate online behavior, including interacting with other individuals on social networking websites and in chat rooms and cyberbullying awareness and response.
There is speculation that this will lead to a new certification on an E-Rate form. I think the KSBA's recommended AUP now has been edited to include a statement saying that this education is occurring. A really good question I've received is "HOW are districts going to incorporate this instruction?" Do we have an assembly with a speaker? Do we create some kind of video or document that students are required to view or read before being given Internet access? Do we leave it to the individual teachers to address as part of other instruction? Does this instruction occur every year? Does it occur for all grades?
As you can see, I have received many questions and I don't know that I have the answers to offer, but I wanted to put this out there to perhaps generate some thought on the topic. Many of us can find sources and information on the types of education that need to occur, examples that can be used, etc. Understanding how best to incorporate this training is the next challenge, and I suppose it's a similar debate as the more general topic of whether "technology" training should be encompassed in its own course or if it should be thought of as only a 'tool' and incorporated into other areas of instruction.
3 comments:
How is this different than the original intent of CIPA (circa 2001). CIPA states: "Schools and libraries must also certify that, as part of their Internet safety policy, they are educating minors about appropriate online behavior, including cyberbullying awareness and response and interacting with other individuals on social networking sites and in chat rooms." (http://www.fcc.gov/cgb/consumerfacts/cipa.html)
The new new Act (Law) has some really good language in it, but we have been signing off on Erate apps for about 8 years that we are CIPA compliant. And part of that compliance is that we are educating our students on Internet safety.
For me, Internet Safety might be too limiting... I like the Digital Citizenship curriculum. In fact, I really like the districts who have put board policies in place to teach kids, every year, by X date, Dig Citizenship and Internet Safety curriculum...
I agree with Marty in that I like the citizenship approach much more than the internet safety approach. The difference to me being that internet safety is using fear while citizenship uses appropriate choices as their core ideals. I have blogged about this and we are teaching citizenship in our district. AS a matter of fact there are multiple sessions being offered this summer to teachers about digital citizenship and how it should be modeled for students.
Marty won't say it himself, but he does an EXCELLENT job with his Digital Citizenship presentation. I need to see him give that preso one or two more times so I can completely plagiarize it.
Good points and excellent comments, guys. JR
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