Activity 4: Web Publishing and Internet Use

EdPsy 490NET

Jenna M. Bryant

Mahomet-Seymour School District/Junior High

http://www.ms.k12.il.us/district/technology/aup.html

The CTER program opened my eyes to the lack of policies and guidelines for many school in regards to technology and internet access. Before these courses, I had never asked about the Acceptable Use Policy (AUP) or the policies related to Web Publishing on our district website. I have taught at Mahomet-Seymour Junior High for 3 years now and 2 years at a smaller high school in Illinois. I began using technology and implementing it into my curriculum as soon as I began teaching. I did take the initiative to give my students and parents’ letters to sign for permission to use and to have pictures on the internet. At my first school, I only had to develop a site to have it then connected to the school district’s website.

At Mahomet-Seymour, the web site is developed and maintained by our technology coordinator and technology administrator. In order to have anything posted to this site, one has to ask for it to be developed or develop your own for him to post on the site. Our school district does not have policies that are written for teachers on posting information on the school’s website. I have taken an HTML course through the high school and was thus granted a password and login to our server. A colleague and I both realized this was out of the ordinary when asked by the junior high technology coordinator how we updated our pages.

The AUP does outline the policies of internet access and use in the school district. Students do not have access to the server or any way to link a page onto our district site. Many teachers in my building do not have the knowledge or know how to create web pages let alone question how to create a page to link to our or from our district or school building site. We were given the opportunity to create a site and mail or give on disk to our coordinator for him to upload to the server. Students sign the AUP at the beginning of the year but it is not an individual paper, but a part of the school handbook, and thus the parents rarely realize that the access is granted. Individual teachers must create and send out letters concerning pictures on the internet and materials to be published.

As of now, I would say that the policies of MS school district do not inhibit learning in general. If I were to be denied access to my district’s website, I would definitely feel that my students were being denied their right to many more opportunities. I integrate and create many internet activities and sites for my students to use regularly. I update my pages and add many more links weekly and more so monthly. My students do create sites or work that I have uploaded to my site, but only with their parent’s permission. I have informed my principal and technology coordinator of these efforts and activities, mainly for the knowledge that we are integrating technology and need more equipment, then for the policy issues. I can foresee the policies on student work and my access to the server being stricter in the future, because I can see more teachers wanting access. The teachers in our district need more education and professional development in the area of the internet, integration, and the policies that should/need to be followed when implementing any form of technology and internet exposure.