Cyber+Safety

Online Safety for our Students
With the increased educational opportunities of the Internet, our virtual walls are coming down and learning is expanding well beyond our physical building. With this exciting time in 21st century teaching, come very real concerns about online safety. For this reason, there are certain recommendations to assure that you are providing students with a safe, networked, learning environment. First, all students and their parents should commit to and sign-off on a school’s Acceptable Use Policy. This policy advises the parent and child of student online responsibility to which they are expected to adhere. Next, students should be advised only to use their first name and first initial of their last name when posting anything online which is accessible within the public domain. If the online learning environment is more extensive, and involves the posting of photos, videos or student work, these particular environments can be password-protected and only accessible by students and their teachers. Last, cyber safety should be a big part of the teacher’s lesson and all students should be made well-aware of their responsibilities as online learners. Certainly, online safety is a very real, very valid concern. However, with the above precautions, we can help keep our students safe and allow them to be active participants within 21st century learning environments.

[|Click here], for a district toolkit on student cyber safety from the [|Consortium for School Networking (CoSN)].