The Consortium for School Networking on Friday unveiled a guide for schools to follow when redrawing their Internet acceptable use policies to account for the proliferation of Web 2.0 technologies and mobile devices.
The guide aims to answer eight policy questions for districts, which begin from a basic structure and sovereignty perspective, progress to explaining outside influences on acceptable use policy such as state and federal law as well as human actions, and conclude with links to sample policies and other resources. There’s even a hefty chart diagramming state laws regarding Internet filtering and cyberbullying, though you should probably switch your paper tray over to at least 11x17 if you want to print it for personal reference.
As readers of this blog know well, CoSN’s guide comes during a time when many schools are trying to figure out how to balance the promise of Web 2.0 tools and mobile devices to increase students’ access to learning with the dangers of cyberbullying, academic fraud, and privacy violation.
The University of San Diego’s Center for Education Policy and Law issued guidelines on creating mobile device use policies last October. And yours truly investigated the thought process that goes into Internet filtering in last fall’s issue of Digital Directions.