Andrew Marcinek Director of Technology and EducatorU.org Co-founder, Boston, MA An acceptable use policy is a document that is present in every school district around the country. The purpose of this policy is to provide safe parameters for exploring digital resources and using school-issued devices properly.
The article talks about the importance of developing internet use guidelines that students can understand by avoiding overly complicated words that may confuse or intimidate students. These guidelines should focus on how students should use the technology rather than focusing on what they should not be doing. The article also focuses on the importance of involving parents and helping them understand how their children should be using technology. Furthermore, the article mentions the importance of being aware of the new apps and their implications in the lives of students. This allows school districts to stay one step ahead and decide whether or not they want students to have access to these apps.
I read and book marked the article "What NOT to do on the first day of class". I thought it was extremely cute and creative as well as amusing. The video is made using young children to make it absolutely hysterical, but also relate-able and extremely true.
This article may be helpful to us because it relates to all of us as teachers and talks about the resources we use in class that allows us to do our job. In the world we use tools for everything, for example we need knives, spoons,forks,pots,ingredients to cook and if we didn't have them we couldn't eat. The same goes for education. The tools we use in classrooms change how we teach and make us the teachers we are.
Shirley, I like how this article shows a timeline of tools in the past that have impacted education and our society. It is also very true when the author says that tools like IPads now a days can cloud our thinking. Teachers can over use IPads to teach lessons when there might be better possible strategies available. There is a fine balance when integrating technology that I think comes with experience in handling and implementing technology in the classroom.
Shirley, this article is really interesting! The analogy you stated was spot on in correlation with access to technology in the classroom. The timeline of technology is also really intriguing to look at seeing how the materials used in schools have evolved.