Scenario 3: Acceptable Use Policies in the classroom
Jason is teaching 9th grade English. This year, his classroom has 6 computers against one wall for students to use. They are to use the computers for homework, typing papers, research and collaboration with other students. After the first week of class, one computer's CD ROM has chewing gum in it. One computer has had file-sharing software installed on it. Jason receives a message from a parent that is concerned her child is going to be exposed to pornography on the Internet. A student comes to Jason after class and says her homework files have been deleted from the computer she was working on. Another student says he received a harassing e-mail that looks like it came from Jason himself!
Questions:
Jason first needs to be aware that although technology is a very progressive educational tool, it is not a cheap one. Everyday prices for new technological devices drop, but the cost to provide every student with good computers, good software and hardware, and regular maintenance is immense. Jason may even want to share with students just how lucky the students are by having access to daily technology, so they will earn to respect and appreciate the privileges they are given.
Additionally, Jason students need to know how dangerous file sharing can be. Anyone can create a worm or Trojan to watch exactly what you are doing on your computer. Your identity can be stolen straight from you with one mouse click.
Jason can explain to the concerned student’s mom that the school system’s firewall protects students from accessing any of these sites. Even if her son or daughter got around the firewall, all work done on the computers in the back of the classroom is in plain sight for the teacher or teachers to see. Jason can assure her how easy it is to closely keep an eye on what the students are doing.
Jason must remind students that you should always save your work on a backup disk, CD, or jump drive. He can encourage students to invest in a jump drive, so they can easily save and transport their files. He may even want to invest or ask PTA for money to provide each student with a file saving disk. Students at our elementary school level are all required to save work to one of the above listed continuously.
As for the harassing e-mail, just as easy as it is to steal someone’s identity, it’s not difficult to forge documents or feign like you are someone else. Without the face-to-face communication, you can never be really sure the person who you think you are talking to is who they really say they are. If I were Jason, I would have one of many new technology coordinators or even a friend to try and track down the source of that particular e-mail. It may consume a lot of time, but chances are better than not that the original author of the e-mail could be traced.
If there were no rules governing students’ use of the computer, the computers could be used for illegal downloading, use, or sale of games, software, and music. Students could use it to cheat their way through school. Students could accidentally give their personal information to a hatemonger.
Jason can tell his students’ parents that the school’s firewall has been programmed to block out such websites. If a student accidentally encounters such a site, Jason should have the site reported to his network administrator so that appropriate actions can be taken to prevent further encounters. Jason might also consider checking in the history folder of each computer periodically to make sure students are staying on task.
Jason needs to teach students that importance of integrity, whether on the web or elsewhere. He should explain to them feeling good about oneself can only come from within and doing things that you are proud of.
This year we had student who was not using his laptop for the schoolwork at all, but he was just playing games and downloading. He had had previous warnings and chose to ignore them. At first, I wrote a behavioral management plan with three objectives, consequences, and incentives. Unfortunately, last week as a last resort, the principal took away the student’s right to use a laptop for abuse of his computer privileges.