Shift to the Future

You know with all the bad press lately about students of all ages inappropriately sharing pictures, videos, and information, we should wonder if privacy still exists.  My last post Living and Learning Responsibly in the Digital World talked about online behaviors.  This post is intended to explore the related problem of online privacy or lack there-of. Where does the responsibility for dealing with privacy issues lie?  Parents?  Teachers?  School systems (i.e., curriculum)?  At what age should this topic be introduced to students?  Should it be reinforced at every opportunity through a student’s educational career? I wonder how much privacy awareness young people in Pitt Meadows had leading up to the rave party incident I referred to in my last post?  What went wrong?  The actions of taking pictures and texting (sexting) them to friends and putting them on Facebook are an invasion of privacy.  How is that young girl going to ever es...

It’s amazing how quickly the menu of IT services has filled out.  I remember back in 1992 when I was asked to connect my employer of the day to the Internet.  I wasn’t quite sure what that meant or where to turn to do it.  It was difficult, expensive, and slow…  18 years later, the Internet is the underpinning to everything we do. We have many teachers and students that use free Internet services such as for encyclopedia, for finding info, people, tools, and storing / sharing documents, for instant messaging, storing documents, networking, for access and storing / sharing educational videos, for screen casting lessons, for professional networking, to host their blogs, and to write collaboratively.  I am interested in what steps teachers or Districts take to address privacy concerns with free services.  I know in our District it’s not a formalized process.  Teachers learn from others and use their own good judgment to take certain precautions.  T...