Legal, Safety, Ethical, and Curricular Considerations

Ensuring Success: Legal, Safety, Ethical, and Curricular Considerations for School Leaders

As we move into the 21st century, school environments are becoming more technology-rich. There are many considerations leaders of a school/district must take into consideration in order to make responsible decisions regarding technology.  These include but are not limited to:

• Children’s Internet Protection Act (CIPA) - monitoring the online activities of minors (filters and acceptable use policies)
• Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (Ferpa) - privacy of student records
• Copyright Laws - protect works so owner has the right to control the sale, distribution, performance, display and adaptation of works
• Fair Use Doctrine - small amounts of copyrighted material is allowed for educational purpose
• Creative Commons - allows creators of work to decide the extent they want their work copyrighted
• Evaluating Websites - webpages need to be evaluated for accuracy, authority, currency and objectivity
• Digital Citizenship Curriculum - create a curriculum to train the faculty, staff and students about proper use of technology (Common Sense Media/free, iKeepsafe/Faux Paw the Web Surfing Techno Cat/free, Generation Safe, YouTube, Google’s Curriculum:  Understanding YouTube and Digital Citizenship, Cyberwise and BrainPop)
• Web 2.0 tools on intranets protected by firewalls

Knowledge brings confidence.  By staying up to date on laws and policies, administrators should feel safe and secure with the teaching and learning possibilities of using technology.

Gerry Brooks

Gerry Brooks - April 1, 2017

If you have never seen a Gerry Brooks video, be sure to search for one on Facebook or Google.  He is a current principal in Tennessee that places humor on teachers and school employee’s daily ‘struggles’ at school.  His most current video has to do with state testing and how dry the test administrator’s throat gets while reading the directions.  Hysterical and so true!!

On April 1st I had the opportunity to attend his presentation/workshop in Hickory.  It was a wonderful way to spend a Saturday.  The room was packed with educators.  

He began by explaining that he began the videos as a way to relieve the tension among his staff at state testing time.  He showed his first couple of videos which most everyone in the room could relate to.  He continued to share his views on different situations that school employees encounter from snacks in the faculty lounge to the copier repairman.   

The following are some acronyms that he shared with us that I found true to ‘school life’.

Parents

DE - Daily Emailer

NMB - Not My Baby

BET - Blames Everything on the Teacher

LAS - Lives at School

NKN - Never Knows Nothing

WBF - Wants To Be Your Best Friend

Students

HWH - Hallway Sloth Walker

ARNN - Always Raised - Never Nos

AFS - Apple Fall Syndrome

HHGH -  How’s He Gettin Home

IDKR - I Don’t Know Repeater

BBG - Big Bow Gang

MMG - Monogrammed Mean Girl

N2C - Number 2 Claimers

PDD - Parent Deficient Disorder

Teachers

MGT - Mean Girl Teacher

FCD - Fancy Car Driver

JCers - Jenny Craiger’s

NCGTE - Non-Contributing Goodie Table Eater

HHAD - Happy Hour at Applebee’s Dresser

CTT - Constant Time Taker

OVC - On the Verge of Crying

SCJ - Sneaky Copier Jammer

SAHM - Self Appointed Hallway Monitor

WFF - Walgreen’s Flip Flopper

I hope you enjoyed and can relate to some of these acronyms.

Collaborative Conference

Collaborative Conference - March 20-22, 2017

I am little behind on these posts (and everything else).  A few weeks ago, I attended the Collaborative Conference in Greensboro.  This is sponsored by North Carolina Department of Public Instruction. There were so many interesting sessions to chose from that it was difficult to narrow them down.  Since our school is in the process of revamping our MTSS program and have begun using NCStar, I chose several that pertained to those subject areas.  I did find  several that dealt with technology and went to a few of them. Listed below are some of the sites and/or apps that can be used by educators.

Closing the Feedback Loop with Google Apps provided user friendly add on apps in Google that will digitally collect information and provide timely feedback.  These apps include:

Doc Appender - informal assessment, immediate feedback, shareable with students, parent and administration, and great for recording student conference notes

Goobric with Doctopus - writing and project feedback, works with analytic rubrics and Google classroom, immediate feedback

Flubaroo - Google forms quiz option

Quizziz -  informal onLine assessment

Kahoot - informal online assessment

Quizlet Live -informal online assessment

Orange Slice - rubric tool

JoeZoo Express -rubric tool

Another session was Digital Tool for Connecting with Parents.  This session looked at various tools and social media to connect with patents.  It looked at the following:

Instagram - photo and videos sharing and captions

Twitter - text messages with a limit of 140 characters per tweet

Facebook - social media that can be used for marketing and public relations

Facebook Live - real-time online live streaming of a live event

YouTube - create a YouTube channel for sharing videos about the school l

Remind - text or email messages

Canvas - platform that can connect parents

Google Classroom - connect parents

S'more - create attractive digital newsletters

Seesaw - share student photos, videos and work

Bloomz - teacher to parent communication tool (can be translated to another language)

Class Dojo - classroom management, sharing updates with parents

Technology is Key in Learning in K-3 provided different sites to allow students to collaborate, create, think critically and problem solve while using the digital competencies for teachers.

Kahoot - create quizzes

Class kick - share texts and thinking maps

ChatterPix - retell, research projects, oral presentations and fluency practice

Tellagami -  retell, research projects, oral presentations and fluency practice

Telestory -  retell, research projects, oral presentations and fluency practice

Padlet- post photos, texts and videos to show what students know

Paper Slides - use the video on your camera by sliding paper and upload on Padlet

VR - Virtual Reality to explore a setting for a story

Epic - free for educators to access books and videos

The last one to discuss is Top 10 Free Websites for Immediate Classroom Use.  This session provided free sites to improve communication, promote creativity and  put fun back into assessments.  The free websites include:

Communication

    QR code Generator - create free QR codes

    Remind - text or email parents

    Weebly for Educators - create free websites or portfolios

    WIX ShoutOut - newsletters

Assessments

    Kahoot - create fun learning games

    Flickers - real time formative assessment dates using cards

    EdGames - game templates for model for modifying cation

Creativity

    Readwritethink - create letters, Venn diagrams, cubes and newspapers

    Canva - create posters, flyers and invitations

    Blabberize - create talking photos

    Mixbook - create photo books

I hope you enjoy these sites.