Internet Policy at School

Internet Policy at School
by Harold Jarche | Sun, 01/18/2009 - 16:43

Jacques Cool, a public school system educator, writes about a better way to develop an IT policy for schools. Jacques writes in French, so here is my very loose translation of his post.

Jacques found that the draft policy was too negative and restrictive, in that it focused on what users "shall not do". Jacques instead recommends that a policy on IT and using the Interenet should include:

• Because the Internet is used by almost all students to do research, the school should focus on developing skills to discern the veracity of information available.
• The proliferation of Web services means that their use in education should be encouraged so that students understand how best to use them and develop appropriate behaviours, guided by teachers.
• The high use social networking sites suggests that teachers engage students in evaluating these services from a critical perspective and understanding how they can be used for learning.
• Students who use the Internet must know how to protect their digital identity.
• Ease of access to text and media online means that students must understand intellectual property, copyright, fair use (fair dealing in Canada) and how to ease copyright restrictions through licensing such as Creative Commons.
• All system users should ensure that their behaviour online reflects the values of public education.

 

• Harold Jarche's blog
• Printer-friendly version
• PDF version

---