Group items tagged

"An ethics policy explains your [school, library, technology, classroom] goals, values and program within the larger context of the [district, school] educational mission, policies and procedures. By stating the rules and identifying the norms as lived in daily practices, the ethics policy offers explicit guidance about an individual's behavior and clarifies the rights and responsibilities of the institution and its stakeholders, the community and its members, the classroom and its learners. "

Somewhere between kids' intuitive social savvy and their online behavior lies an opportunity for both parents and educators to teach responsible digital citizenship, and there are plenty of organizations dedicated to this task alone. Define the Line, a project of McGill University in Canada, was recently awarded a digital citizenship grant by Facebook to help further its work in creating materials to open dialogue about finding the line where joking crosses into negative or criminal behavior. The site includes videos and scenarios designed to enhance discussion of real-world digital topics. Common Sense Media recently launched a free digital citizenship curriculum categorized by age. The curriculum includes both paper-based and digital activities and teaches online safety and Internet research skills in combination with ethics.

"This is a world in which public is the new default. Thought leader Michael Schrage (2010) notes that "the traditional two-page résumé has been turned into a 'personal productivity portal' that empowers prospective employers to quite literally interact with their candidate's work." The rules for building your personal brand are changing at light speed. It's not enough to suggest that we have those admirable skills of creativity, initiative, and entrepreneurship; now we have to show them in action online. In short, our résumé is becoming a Google search result, one that we build with the help of others and that requires our participation. Most students are beginning to face this reality without much assistance from the schools charged with preparing them for the world beyond school. That has to change. We need to help students understand more than just the safety and ethics of participating online; we also have to give them opportunities throughout the curriculum to find and follow their passions and publish meaningful, quality work for real global audiences to interact with." Article by Will RIchardson

An 18 min vid about the ethical obligations of going online from the Australian Communications & Media Authority. Includes bullying, sexting, filmed fights & police action.

list of resources for Fair Use and Creative Commons -- images, music, videos, etc.

"The short answer to that question is that no, a person should never publish a poem on one's own blog/site that's not in the public domain unless permission has been secured (and is included in the post). The true answer is the one you've discovered for yourself -- people do it all the time. The grey space between the short answer and the true answer is the digital citizenship that many Poetry Friday bloggers try to teach by example. If we can't get permission for the poem, we post part of it and link to the site where we found it. Or we link to the book it is from, so that our reproduction of the poem is a form of advertising for the author."

Lots to think about in this article about our students and our relationships with them

"Research suggests that the most creative children are the least likely to become the teacher's pet, and in response, many learn to keep their original ideas to themselves." Gifted kids don't often produce something new but excel in the