Acceptable+Use+Guidelines+for+Cohasset

Acceptable Use Guidelines After looking over the resource links on Moodle and comparing it to the Cohasset AUG, share your thought's below. Would you change anything? Is it appropriate for the vision of the Cohasset School District? for today's digital natives?

Don't forget to include your name.

As I read Cohasset's AUG, I was surprised at how out of date it is. I'm hoping I don't have the wrong version? It seems that it should be revised to reflect so many of the things that we've been learning about! When I read the article entitled Brush up your AUP, I was immediately struck by how little emphasis we place on the AUG here in Cohasset. The parents sign a form that says that they've read it and that's about it! In the article, it talked about how teachers should be making it a priority to review the AUG with parents and students, that the AUG should be distributed and discussed at faculty meetings, and that students should be receiving Internet Safety lessons on a regular basis. Perhaps it is because I teach second graders, but I think they get maybe one lesson from the computer teacher about Internet safety a year and I know that before this point, I was doing more instruction about evaluating sites for accuracy and validity and less about being safe on the Internet. This has opened my eyes to what we should all be doing. When I looked at the actual content of Cohasset's AUG, I was confused by how much of it focuses on the Language Lab at the Middle School. Shouldn't the AUG be reflective of all interactions with technology throughout the district? Also, I think that we need to reevaluate the rules about cell phones and personal technology, as the article states. Are cell phones permitted? At what times/ages are they appropriate? In what circumstances? As a primary grade teacher, I'm not sure because most of my students don't have their own cell phones but shouldn't that be a point of discussion? I often wonder about posting digital images and struggled to find answers in Cohasset's AUG- What is our policy about using student names and/or faces? The same applies to Web 2.0 tools- how are we monitoring student posts? What policies are in place regarding this? Lastly, I think that if Cohasset's AUG were to be revised, it would need to be well implemented and reviewed with students, teachers, and parents so that it is treated with more relevance and importance. Karen McDavitt

==== The CPS AUP is sorely outdated, and not easy to find! I am quite certain that little or no time is spent sharing this information with students, and I’m doubtful many parents are aware of it. I apologize for being so negative, but I am surprised this is not something that has been addressed and made more public, especially since our school is looking to roll-out a 1:1 initiative. I believe our students have to sign a paper from their handbooks that notes they will abide by the AUP, but am uncertain if they truly know what it means in any detail. The specialists are going to have their own open house for the upcoming school year, and I am going to definitely incorporate and share some of this material with parents, as well as note where to find the articles in my wiki. Good for you Cassy! Applying what you are learning into your areas of instruction is a key outcome of BSU coursework! With that said, I also need to include for everyone that it needs to be discussed with your administrators first. I am sure parents will find this very important, and likely not be aware of the laws in any detail. Much of what needs to be addressed is in using personal devices and using our wireless internet. At DH, students are not allowed to bring personal devices, and are not given the wireless code. The reasons for this are unknown to me. ====

Cassandra O'Brien
After reading both pages about Acceptable Use Policies and then reading Cohasset's Acceptable Use Policy, my thought is that I would like to see the district embrace and move towards the idea of outlining a vision for a Responsible Use Procedure that takes into account how much has changed and continues to change rapidly in our digital world. This Responsible Use Procedure will serve as a framework for safe and responsible behaviors for teachers and students when using technology in their classrooms as well as how the technology tools we use and technology integration plays a vital role in creating responsible digital citizens and enhances our teaching and learning in all subject areas. Cohasset as a district should with the help of many different resources (staff, parents, students, and the community) create their own vision for instructional technology and the role it plays in our classrooms and effectively embed the essential digital-age skills our students need along with clear guidelines, procedures, rules and responsibilities needed throughout our prek-12 classrooms. I believe that a thoughtful and consistent message from the district provided through a venue of learning resources such as videos, curriculum (technology) coffees, mini workshops, or an online resource organized with relevant information pertaining to our Responsible Use Procedure would help to facilitate the development of a common understanding about the role of technology throughout our schools and in our teaching and learning. This Responsible Use Procedure should be evaluated periodically by all parties involved and modified and revised when necessary. I think that an ongoing review of our district's policies and procedures with regard to the role technology plays in our classrooms and best teaching practices is an integral and necessary part of the planning we need to do as a district. Reviewing regularly and evaluating technology in our curriculum, analyzing areas that require further attention, as well as acknowledging areas of success and needs improvement will enable all staff, parents, students, and the community to see and understand how technology can support successful teaching and learning and well-prepared digital citizens. Jennifer McPhillips

I couldn’t believe how difficult it was to find the Cohasset Acceptable Use Policy. You would think it would be easily accessible to teachers, students and parents via a separate link on the school website. Personally, I have not spent time talking about it with my second graders. I agree with Karen that I’ve focused on the many uses of the internet and the opportunities it provides us. I have not, however, addressed the use of the internet, what is acceptable and what is not, and what the agreement actually says. I spent some time searching for other school AUP’s and many were clearly posted on district websites. The CPS AUP does address due process and violations but I think it would be better to have specific consequences (perhaps tiers of violations?) laid out for faculty and student misuse. The agreement also addresses things that have been violated in the past, and I am wondering if individuals have truly been reprimanded or if the issues are not being addressed. If the AUP were something that is clearly explained, posted in classrooms, and consistently enforced, then students and/or faculty would be more likely to follow it and respect the agreement. Also, I think that in the elementary grades, we should be concentrating on explaining the policy and have one with child friendly wording. This is something that should be addressed immediately with the students, just as we discuss rules and consequences for the classroom/school at the beginning of the year. It should also be revisited periodically. I’ve had parents ask about the use of the internet when we complete our PowerPoint presentations, and I am honestly uncomfortable with addressing their concerns. Yes, we are careful with where we direct students to go. However, they are searching for images on Google and I have witnessed some pretty inappropriate pictures come up. I would feel much more comfortable with providing them a couple of specific websites that they are allowed to use. Basically, Cohasset needs to make this a priority. It should be one of the most important things discussed at our opening convocation at the beginning of the school year. There needs to be a basic overhaul of the policy and the implementation of it within each school. Stephanie DeLeo

I agree with many of the statements already made. In general I find the acceptable use policy to be very incomplete. It appears to be more of a set of limits than an overall policy of use. It does not address that monitoring is necessary. This can be an issue in High School where we tend to trust students to often work independently. (What should be the role of teachers?) Also, at least at the High School, I am not aware of any formal education for students to ensure proper behavior when using the Web. Also, the policy does not address or set policies for many of the technological changes that we have seen in the past few years. Some of the topics that should be dealt with include the use of personal hotspots, appropriate use of cell phones, use of social media and the use and integration of Web 2.0 tools, just to name a few. Mike W.

After reading through both of the articles related to Acceptable Use Policies that were provided on the Moodle, and taking a look at Cohasset's AUP, it seemed pretty clear to me that it is time for updating our document. I found it interesting that that there are no less than 16 items on a list of "Unacceptable Use" yet there is no clearly stated disciplinary actions that will take place as a result of users failure to comply with the Acceptable Use Policy. This is the first update that I would recommend adding to the AUP. A strongly worded warning might be enough to dissuade a user to engage in illegal activity on the computer. And speaking of illegal activity, perhaps it would be a worthwhile change to the AUP to divide the "Unacceptable Use" list into two sections. The first section could list activities that are in fact illegal and the AUP would clearly state that engaging in these illegal activities would result in the user being reported to law enforcement officials. The second section could list "objectional behaviors" that is, behaviors that will not be tolerated by the Cohasset School District. Engaging in these behaviors would result in disciplinary action that would include suspension, up to expulsion (for students) and dismissal (staff). We might also make the most of showcasing the positive role that technology can play in educating our students by also providing a list of Acceptable Use Guidelines which would include privacy protections, online etiquette and use of child safe search engines, to name a few. I did note with interest that when the CEF funded the Middle School Language Lab, they added a whole section in order to protect their investment. Perhaps these guidelines could be adopted district wide since they are comprised of clearly stated expectations and consequences. Electronic release forms should also be included on the AUP sign off sheet, so that teachers know with certainty if it is or is not acceptable for students to be represented on the internet either visually, by voice or by projects they create to publish or display. Finally, it seems very basic, to expect an AUP link to appear not only on the home page of the district website, but on the home page of each individual school's home page. The AUP should not only be posted and readily available to review but should also be read and sign off on it each school year by every student, parent and staff member. Julia DeWaal Note: Too bad we can't change the color of the text we use if we are pasting in the text from a Word

Julia there's always a way ;) I highlight something with color and get the text color code. Then highlight text from word, again going to the text editor and pasting in the color code. That's how I changed yours to orange! You've added some great information! Seems like everyone has noted that some appropriate changes could be made ~ Joanne

The article Brush Up Your AUP offers very good questions with which to update a school’s technology policies. What I noticed about the questions is that they are very specific and address the precise use or restriction of particular devices within the school setting. I think that it’s important that a school system provides definitive answers to these types of questions when developing or redeveloping their policies. Currently, Cohasset’s guidelines tend to be more general in nature and ultimately open to interpretation. I think for the benefit of both the school and the students, they need to better address digital specifics and they need to do it on an ongoing basis in order to stay current.

I also agree with several other teachers on the idea that the district needs to improve their efforts in making these policies and safety measures more available to the students and their families. The importance of communicating the message of internet safety should be a central focus within the district. One that families should be hearing several times a year through various mediums and avenues.

Michelle Joyce

I am obviously late to this post but am in agreement with everyone here--our AUP is in need of an update. In addition, it is also extremely difficult to find as I spent way too long trying to locate it. Julia had some excellent ideas and suggestions when we do update our policy. I think the most important is making sure students, parents and teachers are aware of the policy and reminded of it often. Employees should absolutely be required to sign off on it. It would be great if parents and students were required to do the same.
 * Meg


 * Judy Ritts: I agree with everyone's comments regarding the glaring inadequacy of ‘our’ current AUG document. And paired with the reality of how difficult it was to find...Wow...Cohasset as a district has some work to do to update our statement to protect and safeguard our digital 'natives'...for sure! I enjoyed seeing all the sites available online for teachers and parents. I especially liked the Kids.gov website for “Online Safety”. I explored two of the sites: FBI Cyber Surf Islands. It’s an activity that features 3rd - 6th grade specific “islands” teaching about different aspects of internet safety. I think ‘my’ kids would find this site a ‘fun’ way to explore the ideas. It’s formatted like a digital game, which can be engaging. I also liked another Kids.gov website called ‘NetSmartz for Educators’. One feature that I liked was it has tabs for Parents & Guardians, Educators, Law Enforcement, Teens, Tweens, and Kids. So this could be a site that a family with kids of different ages could visit and explore the ideas being presented. The formatting is very visually appealing. **
 * The article, “Brush Up Your AUP” was fascinating. Recently, on the ASP trip that I went on with 100 teenagers to Kentucky…as advisors we realized that we need to develop acceptable and responsible guidelines for the teens when using their cell phones, especially in regard to social media and what is appropriate and not appropriate to be posted. All of the teens were appropriate, yet we realized that the times have changed significantly in regard to internet access on the trip to rural Appalachia. Most of the communities have cell phone reception, whereas in ‘the past, we typically did not have to be concerned with access to the internet during the week. I plan to use some of the ‘wording’ presented in this article to rewrite our Sensitivity section of our expected ASP Conduct Code. I want to incorporate the article’s suggestions for updating our code. The article states: “New technology forces us to re-imagine the environment with the needed innovations.” I also liked the idea expressed in the School CIO Blog “Daily Insight”: Making the move from Acceptable to Responsible Use. The article goes on to suggest posting Katrina Schwartz on MindShift: Teach Kids to Be Their Own Internet Filters. Ultimately, kids will be alone most of the time when they are on-line, and they do need to have an inner compass that has been talked about with their parents and teachers to help guide them toward always making responsible decisions. We, as educators and parents do need to put everything in place, however, to keep them safe and instill a sense of responsibility to make the right decisions when they are on their own. **** Judy Ritts **