Welcome back to school!
Are you busy sending large packets of documents home with your students for them and their parents to sign? Have you read your own technology Acceptable Use Policy lately?
Go ahead, I dare you. Search for positive, vision-oriented statements among the threats of punishment. Did you find any?
This year, why not issue a Technology Vision Statement along with your Acceptable Use Policy. Let your students know what you are trying to do with technology. Not what you are going to buy or install, but how you envision learning will change.
Better yet, have a few students help you shape it so it makes sense to them. Pick kids who aren’t going to parrot what you already have written. Send it to parents so that your technology vision is more vibrant and personal than the hysterical “To Catch a Predator” media hype about technology and the Internet. They pay the bills, so let them know you have a vision that soars over the implementation hurdles that everyone faces.
Vision changes everything – so share it, don’t keep it a secret. If it’s your second or third year of a major implementation like laptops, it’s even more important to remind everyone of the vision you started with. Don’t let your revolution peter out because you are assuming everyone still has the original plan burning brightly in their brain like you do. Believe me, they don’t.
Along these lines, does the “contract” you ask students to sign guarantee THEIR rights to have access to reliable computers along with the list of infractions? It’s not a contract if it’s only one way.
Welcome back to school!
Sylvia
Sylvia,
Thanks, you’ve spurred me onto search my district’s websites for their AUPs and to review them (as well as look at when they were last updated… curious to see how many were 3+ years ago… eesh!).
I like the idea of including students and parents, especially those that won’t repeat (I like the word parrot used).
Sylvia,
What a great idea! And what a great collaborative project for my Current Events class, since they can’t possibly get online for at least the first few days of class.
I’ll share any documents we come up with…might be a nice handout at Parents’ Night or a cool item to pass around at a BOE meeting!
Diane
This is great! So far, your idea about a “technology vision statement” is the closest thing I’ve found in my near month-long search for a model of progressive web policy to share with leaders in my district. I’ve posted calls for examples at both my blog and Classroom 2.0. I just can’t get a handle on what this kind of policy looks like and sounds like, and there aren’t a lot of examples out there.
David Warlick’s K-12 Online preconference keynote inspired some thoughts about why this may be the case — I recently wrote/rambled about it in my blog.
I would love to see the vision you crafted for your students and parents. Have you considered posting it?
I like the idea of a technology vision statement and took a crack a writing one myself. Check it out on my blog http://maineideasineducation.blogspot.com
I’m hungry for any suggestions or input. It’s a work in progress as is life I guess.