Responses to scenarios
Scenario 1: Collaboration = Harassment?
A student is using Google Drive as a writing and collaborative tool for peer reviewing. Juan and Jeremy have used the platform instead to exchange comments that involve name-calling and racial slurs. Jeremy’s parents object when his account is suspended claiming it will negatively impact his academic progress.
My Response
It is obvious that the Juan and Jeremy are violating the District Technology Regulations Policy. According to the policy, name calling and racial discrimination is not permitted on any district site. The students violating the district policy need to meet with building administration. The well being of the students who are being negatively affected is an issue. Students need to feel safe accessing and using district technology. Any advice to help address the issue would be to make it a priority to review the district technology policy with students and families prior to accessing the technology so there are not misunderstandings. Also, the policy needs to be posted in the classroom. Finally, students need to control who as access to commenting on their posts.
When I taught fifth grade, this could have been an issue. Students at that age don't always believe that the policies are "for real". The reality of the consequences doesn't always register with students. As a first grade teacher, this wouldn't be an issue.
Scenario 7:
Ms. Jansen, a special ed. teacher, has been using screencasting in her class to post review screencasts of her lessons and study materials. These screencasts have been heavily used by students and she has received glowing emails from parents thanking her for going this extra distance. Ms. Jansen decides it’s time to have her students create their own screencasts. She struggles with how best to post and share their screencasts and decides to use a class YouTube account/channel. Because some students want to do screencasting from home, she provides students with the class YouTube username and password so they can upload their videos from home. Two disasters ensue: 1.) Students post more than just their screencasts including inappropriate random YouTube videos as well as change the privacy settings of the account. 2.) Students post video content of themselves and their peers and the teacher discovers that some of these students have “no photo” stipulations on file in the office. Before Ms. Jansen can even blink, these videos have been shared/linked to Facebook pages and have an assortment of inappropriate comments posted from outside users.
My Response
Ms. Jansen's first mistake was giving out the password to the students. She has no control over what will be posted on the You Tube channel. The students who posted inappropriate videos always violated the district technology policy. They will need to be reprimanded. Depending what was in the inappropriate posted videos, would determine if the students safety and well-being were jeopardized. My advice to the teacher would be don't share passwords with students! Also, when setting up her YouTube account, she should have set up contacts and have the students send the screencasts directly to her YouTube account. Plus when choosing her settings, she should have checked all four boxes limiting the accessibility to the YouTube account.
I agree district policy is a good place to start. Giving out your personal passwords is never a good idea.
ReplyDeleteProactive is better than reactive. There has to be a good way to preteach the seriousness of technology and the consequences that go with it. It's obvious that just having them sign the district policy sheet won't cut it.
ReplyDeleteYeah I agree Jenny, some kids will be kids and some obscure policy just isn't real to them. I can see younger kids making a similar mistake too, albeit maybe somewhat more innocently, but even though these sort of comments wouldn't hurt our feelings as adults, they could still hurt the young people they are directed at and are therefore still damaging to their well-being. But regardless, there needs to be some kind of filter in place, or eventually someone is going to say something unintelligent.
ReplyDeleteGood thoughts. Always make sure you are aware of district and school policies before using a tool with your students! You seem like a productive problem solver!
ReplyDelete