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New AUP online services NSW Schools

"Schoolchildren are at risk of having their online activity tracked and monitored for targeted advertising by internet firms through free cloud based education services. A survey has found that many parents do not know about data mining - the process of tracking email and web browsing habits in order to target advertising - but once they do they have grave concerns for their kids' online privacy, and believe schools need to do more to protect it. The survey commissioned by American IT industry group SafeGov asked 1000 Australian parents about their knowledge of data mining."

"Google openly collects user data from its online services but not via apps for education, but there is concern that the online activity of teenagers is being analysed for targeted advertising."

"That training isn't just for the kids interacting on the site. Everloop also educates parents about how kids make use of social media channels. Parents can help shape the online experience for their kids, but they aren't allowed to participate in the tweens' space. Everloop is a Toolkit for Parents There is a growing trend toward use of monitoring for digital parenting. Location services can be buried deep in the firmware of smartphones and other mobile devices to allow parents to keep tabs on their kids. CheckPoint, an internet security firm, offers software to alert parents to patterns of destructive online behavior on Facebook without granting direct access to the content. Facebook itself has taken steps, including an upgrade to their Family Safety Center, to improve education and member reporting of destructive content. Everloop focuses on a user group younger than these technologies address."

"The most time-consuming part of evaluating web tools for educational use has got to be looking at the Terms of Service (also know as Terms of Use or Terms and Conditions). They can go on for pages, and are so often wrapped up in so much legalese that even if you manage to read to the end, there is no guarantee you will be any wiser. And yet we can't just ignore them; it is our duty as educators and as digital citizens to protect rights and understand responsibilities online."

A read through most online privacy policies is enough to make your stomach acid curdle. And social media companies have more access to personal data than most. Some collect information you expressly give them, like your credit card and telephone numbers. Others gather data based on how and where you use their services. This might include anything from device and browser information to location intel. And some of it gets really specific - think about your last search query or ad click. It's probably all "fair" game. Depending on the type gathered, social networks use data to enhance location services and target advertising (now you know why that sunglasses website you visited three months ago follows you all over the web). A few social sites even share certain information with marketers and/or third-party partners - in that case, you are responsible for familiarizing yourself with those other companies' policies as they apply to you and your information.

"Whether you realize it or not, dozens - if not hundreds - of apps and services have access to your social accounts and can see everything you're doing online. Tweets, Likes, your location, are all there for the taking. What's worse, there's a pretty good chance you unwittingly gave them permission."

"Respect each other online You can use phones, tablets and computers to do awesome stuff. But things can turn nasty if you use them to disrespect each other. Treat each other with respect and Keep It Tame." This site has links to a range of support services and comes from http://www.youngandwellcrc.org.au/ 

"BornYet is a delightfully easy birth announcement service" Yes BUT!!!!!!

"Planet Nutshell produces short animated videos to explain products, services, and concepts. One of their series of videos is all about the Internet and Internet safety for K-12 students. The series is called NetSafe and it has 17 episodes that were produced for the Utah Education Network. The videos are labeled with grade levels so that students in high school don't watch videos designed for K-3 students. "

John, thank you so much for this post and introducing me to this wonderful site! I love it!

"Google is a technology giant that provides a huge variety of services, many of which are free. Gmail, Google Drive and Google Hangouts can be used without paying a dime. Instead, pay by providing information about yourself, which Google can use for advertising. Though it started in search, the lion's share of the company's profits come from ads."

Scrible is a new service offering a nice set of tools for highlighting, annotating, and bookmarking webpages. Scribble offers browser bookmarklets for Firefox, Chrome, Safari, and Internet Explorer. With the Scrible bookmarklet installed, anytime you're on a page just click the bookmarklet to launch a menu of bookmarking tools. The Scrible tool set includes highlighters, sticky notes, and font change tools. When you annotate and bookmark a page in Scrible it is saved as it appeared to you when you were done altering it.

This article deals with the the range and impact of social networking sites on teenagers and children.

"Internet filters in schools often compromise a teacher's ability to teach, yet at the same time are easy for tech-savvy students to get around, a parliamentary committee on cyberbullying has heard. The Federal Parliament undertook a cyber-safety committee late last week to investigate community concerns about protecting children from bullying online and the measures that could be used to prevent it, such as Internet filtering."

This website describes clearly the elements of digital etiquette, or "netiquette". It contains full access to an online version of the book Netiquette by Virginia Shea, a summary of the basic rules the book suggests, and a quiz to test your netiquette knowledge. It provides a clear understanding of the concepts needed to create a policy on digital etiquette and will be a useful resource when creating one.

"As I lamented in my last post, many of the fabulous Web tools out there are restricted to users 13 and over. This limits what Elementary/Primary schools students can access online to create content to collaborate. To save others at school some time, then, I have compiled a list of popular/well known Web tools that can and can't be used by children under 13 - 1), so we are legally covered in what we are allowing our students to use and 2), so they know what is available. Please note that generally the sites that allow for under 13s still ask for parental permission ( even Edmodo if you haven't read the Terms of Use) so a solid school user agreement is needed to use these tools. Some of the sites are not US based so are not bound by COPPA and CIPA regulations. It still requires schools to carefully check out what can be viewed on these sites to ensure they are appropriate to access."

NSW Dept of Education