Learning On The Job

This year we are rolling out a new Responsible Use Agreement ¹ to all members of the school community. In my mind this has needed to be done for quite some time and it’s been a bit of a rollercoaster getting here, but I would like to thank Andrew Churches for his excellent resources licensed under Creative Commons.

To introduce th RUA to the teachers, I was given 1 hour last Friday. My goals were to familiarize all teachers with the new RUA and to empower them to feel comfortable discussing the idea of responsible use with students since they are truly the front line on this. I worked along with the counselors to come up with some “grey area” scenarios in Responsible Use. We then modified the Visible Thinking Routine Circle of Viewpoints to get groups of four to discuss the scenario from one of four viewpoints: student, teacher, administrator or parent. At the start of each of the four scenarios, participants took on a new role. The idea, in my mind, was to highlight the “grey” nature of these scenarios and, by looking at them from various perspectives, encourage discussion and the teaching of responsibility rather than judgement and assuming students know right from wrong.

The four scenarios we chose were:

• A legitimate search for images in class returns an inappropriate image. The student then shares that image with others.
• After completing their work, a student starts playing a flash-based game unrelated to school.
• While working independently, the student is constantly “multi-tasking.” As the teacher walks around, the student minimizes programs and hides the task bar.
• At break time, a group of students is playing online games together.

I was ² blown away by the amount of discussion this activity created, both during the activity and for the rest of the day. It has brought the idea of responsible use ³ to the forefront of our discussions about community.

The next step is to run a very similar session with all students in the Middle and High Schools as well as sessions for parents in the first couple of weeks of school. I want this to be on everybody’s minds as we begin this school year and it will tie in perfectly with our visit from Robin Treyvaud in October!

What scenarios would you choose to include that would generate discussion in your community? How do you share and discuss your RUA with parents and students?

Okay, so it’s not an AUP, it’s an RUP (Responsible Use Policy). And it’s not really mine. It is heavily borrowed from Andrew Churches and Tod Baker under CC licenses. But it’s a starting point. Let’s see what the Big Cheeses have to say about it.

click for full size