Many of us cannot go a day without connecting to the internet, it is incorporated into our lives and the lives of our students. With the increased need and use of internet at school, school districts and individual schools have created Acceptable Use Policies. Many times school districts send these home in the beginning of the year along with the student handbook. Parents and students must sign, indicating that they have read and understand the policy. Acceptable Use Policies, also known as AUP, are policies that outline how schools or districts expect their teachers, students and community members to behave when using technology. (“1-to-1 Essentials – Acceptable Use Policies | Common Sense Media,” n.d.) According to the National Educational Association, an AUP needs to contain six key elements; preamble, definition section, policy statement, acceptable uses section, unacceptable uses section and violation/sanctions section. (“Education World,” n.d.)
Examples of Acceptable Use Policies:
North Thurston School District
The internet has its advantages, however, if users do not practice internet safety, they could be put into a bad situation. In addition, not all content on the internet is appropriate for K-6 students. School districts and schools do an excellent job utilizing filtering software to block inappropriate material from students, however this does not stop students from giving out personal information. Teachers need to instruct students about digital citizenship. Roblyer provides 8 topics of digital citizenship; internet safety, privacy and security, relationships and communications, cyberbullying, digital footprint and reputation, self-image and identity, information literacy and creative credit and copyright. (Roblyer, 2015) In my school district digital citizenship is a required subject. Most of the resources used by the teachers comes from Common Sense Media. Teachers need to teach students digital citizenship and netiquette so that the internet is a safe learning environment.
1-to-1 Essentials – Acceptable Use Policies | Common Sense Media. (n.d.). Retrieved October 5, 2016, from https://www.commonsensemedia.org/educators/1to1/aups
Education World: Getting Started on the Internet: Acceptable Use Policies. (n.d.). Retrieved October 6, 2016, from http://www.educationworld.com/a_curr/curr093.shtml
Roblyer, M. D. (2015). Integrating Educational Technology into Teaching, Enhanced Pearson eText with Loose-Leaf Version — Access Card Package (7 edition). Pearson.
Kendal Cramer: EDTECH Learning Log 