The following post is a compilation of email threads and collaborative work on a couple different projects – all resulting in some results for the July 1st (2012) implementation of the Protecting Children in the 21 Century Act. Reminder: this is your “newly” documented plan (how and when) you will ensure the education of minors about appropriate online behaviors, Internet Safety, Cyberbullying, etc… It’s your teaching component on Digital Citizenship to go along with your AUP procedure.
I’ll steal the great quote from Dr. Coleman again “That (21 Century) was 12 years ago people!” And we are just now enacting a federal report and order identifying the need to actually TEACH Online behavior skills. It’s a kin to driver’s ed — or sex ed. Where we’ve finally realized that without instruction – there is ZERO technical measure that can fix bad behavior. We’ve tried that approach, which has yielded dismal and frustrating results. SOoooo Let’s try the teaching and learning.
As we dug more into this… It is pretty safe to say that from the Federal level (of how all of this plays out) there are some unknowns.–For example, the Feds do NOT tell us how often (when) we need to teach online behavior Internet Safety, Digital Citizenship, & Cyberbullying awareness skills… They just say to instruct it. They also do NOT tell us how to teach it or what curriculum to use. …This is all due to the new “Protecting Children in the 21st Century Act” We also do NOT know how this plays out in an Erate audit. We simply do NOT know what they will ask for, if anything at all.–There seems to be some confusion on what is “CIPA compliant” and what the new Protecting Children in the 21st Century Act brings in that we must address (education of minors). The new act says we have to have a policy (“the education of minors about appropriate online behavior, et… “) on teaching…–My recommendation: The policy language (as defined by the Federal Act) is covered and is in your KSBA packet to be approved by your board. My question will continue to be: do you have procedures to cover the policy? The procedure should be the “how and when.” As noted in last months discussion topics The Brief we drafted covers some additional recommendations. But the point is documenting the How and the Why When. (let me know if you’d like a copy of that brief. it’s hyperlinked in the discussion topics)–We all know that it is worse to have a policy on the books and not enforce it, than to not have a policy at all. It would be like having a policy to get parent permission before using technology resources (AUP)… but never actually having parents sign, and never keeping track of who has signed and who has not.–This is all new stuff. I don’t think it has to be difficult or SUPER in depth. It should be easy to understand and direct – straight to the point. It could be as short as 1 or 2 sentences. But I’lll continue to think that we really don’t know much, until an audit and there are either thumbs up or thumbs down on someone’s approach.
District Examples:
Attached here are 2 homegrown examples from school districts I work with (I received permission to share) who are taking a stab at a district wide plan to teach Internet Safety, Digital Citizenship, Cyberbullying awareness, etc..
- Harrison County DRAFT (in MS Word)
- Bourbon County DRAFT (in MS Word)
We are all sure that these are not yet perfect by any means, but they are living/breathing plans that will continue to get refined as they are implemented.