Responsible technology use in public schools
Massachusetts Educational Technology Advisory Council
Internet Safety Task Force 2009-2010
Introduction
Implementing educational technology systems and policies within a school district is no easy task. All of
the usual concerns—funding, professional development, staffing, compatibility issues, classroom
management—were enough to keep administrators up at night, even before people began talking about
student safety. Districts are now being asked to protect students from seeing or posting inappropriate
content, becoming victims of cyberbullying, and participating in sexting.
Given these pressures, it is worth taking a step back and recognizing the tremendous importance of
preparing our students for the 21st century, and the integral role that the Internet, computers, and
mobile devices play in such preparation. Indeed, one of the most important 21st century skills involves
the ability to navigate safely and responsibly through the vast Internet landscape, selecting the best
tools and information for the task at hand.
How, then, can schools meet the challenge of providing both a safe, secure learning environment and
the opportunity for students to learn? This white paper by the Internet Safety Task Force of the
Massachusetts Educational Technology Advisory Council attempts to provide some guidance, through
observations, examples, and resources. It is not intended to be comprehensive, but rather to provide a
lens through which district and school personnel might begin to see new opportunities.
Philosophy
It is the belief of this group that the best way to both protect and educate students is to provide them
an environment in which they can learn, experiment, be exposed to role models (including educators
and other students), and receive feedback about their behavior. It should be no surprise that a group of
educators would recommend this approach. What is surprising is the number of school districts that
implement policies geared towards avoidance rather than education.
Such policies are often a result of “worst-case thinking,” an approach that attempts (but often fails) to
protect against specific nightmare scenarios. In the words of renowned security expert Bruce Schneier:
Every decision has costs and benefits, risks and rewards. By speculating about what can possibly
go wrong, and then acting as if that is likely to happen, worst-case thinking focuses only on the
extreme but improbable risks and does a poor job at assessing outcomes.… Worst-case thinking
leads to bad decisions, bad systems design, and bad security.
In public schools, this approach often presents itself in policies that prohibit broad categories of
behavior or access: banning cell phones, blocking social networking sites, filtering certain topics or
words. Taken to an extreme, these policies can lead to results ranging from humorous (one student was
Page 1 of 7
unable to do a report on his Congressman, Dick Armey, due to a keyword filter) to truly restrictive (a
new policy in one Massachusetts district limits teachers and students to using only online services that
have been approved by, and signed contracts with, the district).
To truly educate and protect our students, districts have to find more nuanced approaches to
technology. A recent study in UK grade schools found that when schools provided students with latitude
in their online use, and teachers corrected inappropriate behavior, the students learned more about
cybersafety than in schools where students were “protected” behind strict filters. Professor Craig
Cunningham recommends giving teachers the ability to override filters when they block access to
educationally relevant content. This allows educators to exercise judgment in the classroom, which
opens up additional online resources and in some cases presents a teachable moment for students.
Filtering, however, is only one small part of educational technology systems and policies. The remainder
of this document recommends resources for addressing a variety of technology issues through the lens
of protecting students through education rather than restriction.
"Swimming pools can be dangerous for children. To protect them, one can install
locks, put up fences, and deploy pool alarms. All these measures are helpful, but
by far the most important thing one can do for one's children is to teach them to
swim." –Dick Thornburgh and Herbert S. Lin
Resources
The resources below are in addition to an extensive set of materials that can be found on MassONE in
the TLR section. ETAC did not evaluate the MassONE materials against the philosophy espoused above.
Cyberbullying
Cyberbullying, and school bullying in general, have been in the news a lot in recent months. Here in
Massachusetts, new legislation requires schools to take a more active role in the prevention and
reporting of bullying, whether it occurs on school grounds or not. Nancy Willard’s Center for Safe and
Responsible Internet Use (CSRIU) offers materials, such as the “Educator’s Guide to Cyberbullying,” that
address cyberbullying from the perspective of building a safe school environment. Elizabeth Englander’s
Massachusetts Aggression Reduction Center (MARC) also offers materials and programs for educators
aimed at changing school culture to one that does not accept bullying. MARC collaborated with the
Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education to post bullying prevention
resources for parents, as well.
The non-profit Middlesex Partnerships for Youth serves as both a resource for districts (it offers
professional development and events related to student safety) and as an example of a successful model
where law enforcement and school districts have come together to address cybersafety and other
student safety issues.
Page 2 of 7
The Massachusetts Attorney General’s office has a page about school bully prevention programs, though
it does not (yet) provide any legal guidance for schools in complying with the new legislation. It does,
however, link to a great Guide to Bullying Prevention from the Commonwealth.
A more student-centric resource is the “Time for Tolerance” website, which was developed by children,
for children (it says for ages 9-16, but 9-13 would probably be more accurate). This site focuses its
message on building “acceptance and respect for the differences between people.” Here, bullying is
treated not as an isolated problem, but one which is an obstacle to the positive goal of building mutual
respect. Cyberbullying, in turn, is not treated as something that exists on its own, but rather as a
particular form of bullying. The site also has a page with advice for schools on how to combat bullying.
Safety and security advice for students
The surest way to get a child to reach into a cookie jar is to tell him that he shouldn’t; there’s even
research on the subject. By all accounts, the “Just Say No to Drugs” campaign in the 1980s was a failure.
Yet most cyber security and cyber safety materials for K-12 students take this same approach, listing all
of the things kids shouldn’t do online, often in a tone that is perceived as dictatorial rather than
informative.
In contrast, the guides produced by WiredSafety and distributed by Cisco for tweens and teenagers
focus on building skills that will continue to be useful throughout the child’s life: when and whom to ask
for help, how to choose a safe password, how to navigate the web without falling victim to common
traps, etc. The tone of these guides is conversational, gently directing their audiences to make good
choices and to develop positive online habits.
Involving parents
Navigating online space effectively and safely is a life skill, just like navigating a city. Parents play a
critical role in modeling behavior, setting expectations, monitoring out-of-school technology use, and
responding appropriately to their children’s concerns.
The Federal Trade Commission recently published a guide for parents on how to talk with their kids
about being online. (The guide is also available in Spanish and printed.) The guide emphasizes the
importance of open communication and educates parents on everything from cyberbullying to parental
control software.
A similar but briefer guide for parents can be found at ConnectSafely.org.
Rethinking acceptable use policies
Many acceptable use policies for students read like a list of unacceptable uses, often with a heavy dose
of legalese. Written well, however, an acceptable use policy (or, stated more positively, a responsible
use policy) can serve to educate and protect the district.
An ideal acceptable/responsible use policy should be written for students, not for lawyers, and should
present clear expectations for student behavior when using district technology resources. The Australian
Page 3 of 7
state of Victoria has an outstanding template [in Word format] that is notable for the way it outlines
good behavior while defining clear rules that can be enforced in the classroom. (It’s also interesting that
the Victoria schools require the student and the parent/guardian to sign the policy.)
Integrating responsible use into the curriculum
In 2004, Patty Yamano at Pepperdine University studied how prepared fourth and fifth grade teachers
feel in teaching their students about cyberethics. She found that while most teachers, as adults, have a
strong sense of personal ethics and are able to practice that in cyberspace, they have a great deal of
difficulty transferring that moral understanding into teaching cyberethics to their students. She also
found that even those teachers who were teaching cyberethics were doing so in direct instruction rather
than through activities and discussion, the kinds of interactive process so necessary in developing
judgment.
Patty Yamano's research shows that to help teachers be most effective in teaching and practicing the
everyday acts of ethical behavior in cyberspace, they also need to be educated in using technology in
the classroom and in the integration of curriculum objectives and technology resources. Yamano found
that these competencies are the functional prerequisites to learning and teaching cyberethics. If
teachers do not know how to use technology and are not comfortable integrating technology in their
teaching, they will be less able to help their students learn ethical behavior in cyberspace (Whittier,
2006).
The CyberSmart Curriculum’s lesson on managing project teams provides a great example of how to
integrate technology use into a lesson about teamwork. The tools and the teamwork skills that students
are exposed to in this lesson can be adapted for broader use within the classroom. This would allow an
ongoing opportunity for students to experiment with, and be guided in the responsible use of,
collaborative online environments.
Further reading
TeachPaperless is a blog about integrating social technology into the classroom.
Classroom 2.0 is a self-contained social network that focuses on the use of social networking and web
2.0 technology in educational environments.
TeachEng.us has a bunch of great ideas about how teachers can embrace technology. It’s geared toward
English teachers, though many of the ideas are universal.
Weblogg-ed presents a more theoretical dialog about the changing face of education, with a strong bias
towards embracing technology and open access in the classroom.
Tools for the 21st Century Teacher is an e-book that describes a bunch of web-based tools and how they
may be helpful to educators.
Page 4 of 7
The Spartanburg (South Carolina) District 7 Technology Blog is a great example of how a district’s
instructional technology department communicates with district personnel. It also highlights many
examples of innovative use of technology within districts.
CyberSafety in the Classroom is an article in the June 2010 issue of DistrictAdministration that describes
how some experts recommend, and how some districts are implementing integrated cybersafety
education.
Technological Pedagogical Content Knowledge (TPCK) is a framework put forth by Punya Mishra and
Matthew J. Koehler of Michigan State for understanding and improving teaching. It reinvents Lee
Shulman’s widely adopted Pedagogical Content Knowledge (PCK) framework, emphasizing technology
integration as a key part of pedagogy.
Contributors
This document was created by the Internet Safety Task Force of the Educational Technology Advisory
Council, which advises the Massachusetts Board of Elementary and Secondary Education. The task force
for 2009-2010 included:
Shelley B. Chamberlain, Director of Information Technology, Newton Public Schools
Edwin Guarin, Academic Developer Evangelist, Microsoft
Charles F. Kilfoye, Director of Instructional Technology, Northeastern University Online
Steven Mazzola, Director of Technology, Belmont Public Schools
Anne K. Sheehy, Instructional Technology Specialist, Lowell Public Schools
Thomas J. Stella, Assistant Superintendent, Everett Public Schools
Maxim Weinstein (task force co-chair), Executive Director, StopBadware
David Whittier (task force co-chair), Assistant Professor, Boston University School of Education
References
Print
Butler, Kevin. “Cybersafety in the Classroom.” District Administration, June 2010.
Fisher, Jennifer Orlet, and Leann Lipps Birch. “Restricting access to palatable foods affects children’s
behavioral response, food selection, and intake.” American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, Vol. 69, No. 6,
1264-1272, June 1999.
Mishra, P., & Koehler, M. J. “Technological Pedagogical Content Knowledge: A new framework for
teacher knowledge.” Teachers College Record. 108(6), 1017-1054.
Shulman, Lee S. “Those Who Understand: Knowledge Growth in Teaching.” Educational Researcher, Vol.
15, No. 2 (Feb., 1986), pp. 4-14.
Thornburgh, Dick, and Herbert S. Lin. Youth, Pornography, and the Internet. National Academies Press,
2002.
Page 5 of 7
Yamano, P. “Cyberethics in the Elementary Classroom: Teaching Responsible Use of Technology.”
Proceedings of Society for Information Technology & Teacher Education International Conference 2006,
3667-3670. Chesapeake, VA: AACE.
Whittier, David. “Cyberethics in the Googling Age.” Journal of Education, Vol. 187, No. 2, 1-6, Spring
2006.
Web
http://www.doe.mass.edu/boe/sac/edtech/
http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2010/05/worst-case_thin.html
http://blogs.computerworld.com/15824/a_simple_fix_for_internet_censorship_in_schools
http://www.nap.edu/openbook.php?record_id=10261&page=9
http://www.mass.gov/legis/laws/seslaw10/sl100092.htm
http://csriu.org/
http://www.csriu.org/cyberbully/
http://www.csriu.org/cyberbully/docs/cbcteducator.pdf
http://webhost.bridgew.edu/marc/index.html
http://www.doe.mass.edu/ssce/bullying/
http://www.middlesexpartnershipsforyouth.com/
http://www.mass.gov/?pageID=cagoterminal&L=4&L0=Home&L1=Community+Safety&L2=Schools+%26
+Youth&L3=School+Climate&sid=Cago&b=terminalcontent&f=community_bully_prevention_programs&
csid=Cago
http://www.mass.gov/Eeohhs2/docs/dph/com_health/violence/bullying_prevent_guide.pdf
http://library.thinkquest.org/07aug/00117/index1.html
http://library.thinkquest.org/07aug/00117/schools.html
http://www.ajcn.org/cgi/content/full/69/6/1264
http://www.linksysbycisco.com/static/content/20090629/Kids_and_tweens_Cybersafety_WEB.pdf
http://www.linksysbycisco.com/static/content/20090626/teen_cybersafety.pdf
http://www.ftc.gov/bcp/edu/pubs/consumer/tech/tec04.pdf
http://www.ftc.gov/bcp/edu/pubs/consumer/tech/stec04.pdf
http://bulkorder.ftc.gov/
http://www.connectsafely.org/Safety-Tips/virtual-world-safety-tipsteens.html
http://www.connectsafely.org/Safety-Tips/virtual-world-safety-tipsteens.html
http://www.eduweb.vic.gov.au/edulibrary/public/teachlearn/ict/Acceptableuseagreementtemplatefors
chools.doc
http://www.editlib.org/p/22669
Page 6 of 7
http://www.eric.ed.gov/ERICWebPortal/custom/portlets/recordDetails/detailmini.jsp?_nfpb=true&_&E
RICExtSearch_SearchValue_0=EJ762979&ERICExtSearch_SearchType_0=no&accno=EJ762979
http://cybersmartcurriculum.org/authentic/lessons/9-12/managing_project_teams/
http://teachpaperless.blogspot.com/
http://www.classroom20.com/
http://teacheng.us/
http://weblogg-ed.com/
http://issuu.com/mzimmer557/docs/tools_for_the_21st_century_teacher
http://spart7.info/techblog/
http://www.districtadministration.com/viewarticle.aspx?articleid=2428
http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.91.7990&rep=rep1&type=pdf
http://www.jstor.org/stable/1175860
http://www.doe.mass.edu/boe/sac/edtech/
Page 7 of 7