Policy Brief Part 4

Internet Privacy and Security

Introduction
Staysafeonline.org says it best when it says that every day, schools and the Internet are becoming increasingly intertwined (2009). Since this is the case, children are becoming more and more vulnerable to things such as cyberbullying, cyberpredators, and stalkers. While we have firewalls in place and we don’t allow our students to surf the Internet unsupervised, this only protects them while they are within the school walls. They are becoming very tech-savvy and applying what they learn at school at home.


Option 1
Implement some type of Internet safety curriculum to fit with our current technology indicators.

Pro – Adding Internet safety curriculum to the tech indicators is the only way to be sure that all students are being taught how to stay safe on the Internet. No additional staff would be needed to implement this idea because the classroom teacher would be doing the instruction, just as they do the rest of the tech curriculum.

Con – Putting one more thing to teach on the plates of already overburdened teachers could have negative effects. While teachers are flexible, they feel the stress of having to cover all of the curriculum, prepare every single student for the PSSA tests each spring, and differentiate instruction with guided reading, our new word-study program, and now guided math that they are being told to try to implement. Adding just a little more to their shoulders could break morale, which would decrease the effectiveness of their instruction.

Option 2
Since many students will be accessing the Internet to do research and librarians (in addition to the classroom teachers) teach research skills, have the librarian instruct the students in Internet safety.

Pro – The librarians already teach the students how to research a topic. If they were to include this in their instruction, all students would learn how to stay safe on the Internet. Being that the librarians do not have the vast curriculum to teach that classroom teachers have to teach, they could include this in their lessons without much issue.

Con – While the librarians do not have an extensive list of indicators to teach, their time with students is much less than the time classroom teachers have. The students have library instruction for 40 minutes only one time per six-day cycle. Including more instruction into their schedules would lead to inferior instruction


References

Bocher, Robert F. (2009, March 20). Privacy Issues Related to Public Libraries and K-12 Schools. Retrieved July 26, 2009, from Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction Homepage Web site: http://dpi.wi.gov/pld/privacy.html

National Cyber Security Alliance, K-12 Educators. Retrieved July 26, 2009, from Welcome to Stay Safe Online Web site: http://staysafeonline.org/