Friday, April 8, 2011

Kanawha County Acceptable Use

Our Acceptable Use contract has been around for several years. Currently, it doesn't directly address Web2.0 tools, but it does so in vague legalease. I have interpreted it to be open enough that as long as a student is using their Access.k12... email address, a teacher can have them do most anything and use most any available Web2.0 tool.

Keeping track of all of these forms has been a great headache in our school. Last year, about 1/4 of the total forms were lost in a flooding incident. This wasn't realized until mid-way this year. We began using a Google Spreadsheet to organize the student names and data. It is divided by grade level and has a box for each of the spots that appear on the AUP. This allows us to sort students by many factors, such as those that can have their photo on the website, or those that can have no information at all posted online. This is an easy way to check things out - much better than sorting through 650 sheets of paper. We also have a column for their access email ID, but I have not gotten that updated yet. The teachers that need this information have access to the spreadsheet - some to view, some to edit. We currently have 100% of our students with AUPs on file and 100% of them permitted to access the Internet from home. The one holdout was a parent that didn't want his daughter on MySpace and Facebook. After it was shown to him that we block the sites, he let her have access.

What to do when a student can't have access at school and needs to research. We have several work arounds. First, if the student has a cell phone with Internet access, we allow them to use it, if they so choose (not my favorite because we then lose all control). Another, is to let that student work with another student who physically manipulates the computer (hence the non-allowed student isn't accessing it, only viewing it. The last resort is for the teacher to do the typing.


Click here to view a PDF version of our AUP via GoogleDocs.

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