Acceptable use agreements in Junior School
Many, if not most schools have a policy where students of all ages are expected to sign an acceptable use agreement. Students from year 1 upwards are required to sign these agreements. The language used in the agreements is very rarely suitable for the younger students and they struggle to understand them, let alone read them or sign the document.
The problem with this is in my opinion two fold. First the students are so young that they are unable to comprehend what they
are signing. The concepts that are detailed in the acceptable use agreements are beyond the experiences of the students. The students are essentially told to sign the agreement, and do not understand what they are signing. So what is the value of this?
The second problem is, in my opinion, that the parents are asked to sign that they accept the rules, and are never present to supervise the actions of their children or students. Further in the absence of parents, we are the teachers are parents in locum. So it comes back to us being responsible
So I have to question the value of these documents. So what is the alternative?
Well, I have talked about this with several colleagues, and I think the best alternative is actually what we operate with the digital citizens, partnership.
I think our agreement about acceptable use would involve all three aspects of the community, parents, teachers and students. The approach would start with a clear statement of what we, as a school can and can not do. This would include restrictions and monitoring, students education and training, and our expectations. It would also cover what we can’t do, like be watching every student every minute of the day, stop children from sneaking in and using computers or from opening multiple windows and applications and switching rapidly between them.
The second part would be what we expect from the parents and what we can do to support them in this. This would outline the expectations and suggestions for home computer access and use. It would also explain the cyber-safety evenings and parent support mechanisms.
The third part would cover the expectations, behaviors and outcomes from the students. It would cover the vision of the student as a digital citizen appropriate for the age of the child.
The document would then be signed by all three parties not as as legal agreement, more as a memorandum of understanding, understanding that this is a learning journey.
This would be a positive documents that models the partnerships that we need to develop to develop students who are ethical, moral contributors to our digital world.
Thoughts?
4 Comments Already
March 22, 2011 at 4:55 am Permalink
Greetings from Dalian, Andrew!
You make several great points here. The one piece of the puzzle I often get stuck on is why internet use is treated so differently from other school rules? We don’t have “Hallway only rules” and then “Playground only rules” and then “Gym only rules” that we have students and parents sign acceptable use policies for, but we have them for our online spaces. Don’t swear on the playground, in the hallways, in classrooms OR in our online learning spaces… it’s all part of a continuum.
Here were some blog rules that I created many moons ago, before schools were thinking about AUP’s: Blog Rules – Respect, Inclusion, Learning and Safety They aren’t really rules, and if I were to do this again, I’d call them ‘expectations’ instead. But the key point is that I just took the 4 school beliefs that were student generated in a huge school-wide process: Respect, Inclusion, Learning and Safety… and I said, “These are our beliefs in school, and our online spaces are part of our school.”
So, I too question the value of these documents? They seem to (attempt to) remove the responsibility of the school for things that happen online, when what I really think is that schools should be extending their walls and encompassing digital spaces. These online spaces are just another school community space where community expectations are, well, expected… without the need of a policy.
Thoughts?
~Dave.
ps. At the time of creating my blog rules I had our blogs in a private space, now I’d share them with the world.
March 22, 2011 at 5:01 am Permalink
By way of explanation. Dave is in China and the firewall blocked the comment, so he posted it on his blog and twittered the response http://pairadimes.davidtruss.com/do-schools-really-need-an-aup/
I agree Dave, we don’t need two sets of rules. The digital citizenship model I have been working on is actually a citizenship model. Look after yourself (respect and protect yourself), look after others (respect and protect others) look after property (respect and protect intellectual property).
March 22, 2011 at 10:29 am Permalink
Thanks for posting the comment Andrew!
I’m back ‘in’ (for now). I have a VPN but since the latest crackdown, resulting from of the issues in the Middle East and the fear of a People’s uprising here, internet service has been BRUTAL!
I’m so glad this happened after the Flat Classroom Conference in Beijing. It was great meeting you there after following along on your blog and wiki for years.
“The digital citizenship model I have been working on is actually a citizenship model.” ~Great stuff Andrew!
March 29, 2011 at 6:07 am Permalink
Hello!
This is a great topic you address here.
Another good example of this approach is captured in the guidance document produced by De Pere School District in Wisconsin for students using our online collaborative learning environment (My Big Campus). You can read my blog post here. http://blog.lightspeedsystems.com/joel/2011/03/28/acceptable-use-policies-aups-simplified/
Note the key, simple phrase they lead off the student expectations section with: “My Big Campus is an extension of our school learning environment. Therefore, all universal school expectations apply. (Be Responsible! Be Respectful! Be Safe!)”
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