New from the American Association of School Librarians (AASL).
From an AASL News Release:
The American Association of School Librarians (AASL), in conjunction with its second annual Banned Websites Awareness Day, has released a white paper covering the appropriate use of educational technology in schools. The paper covers the topics of filtering practices, acceptable use policies (AUPs), apps, social media, bring your own device (BYOD) and other related subjects and can be read via the AASL website at www.ala.org/aasl/educational-technology.
The paper states that when used appropriately, educational technology is a tool to assist with implementation of the Common Core State Standards, help raise graduation rates and prepare students for life beyond K-12 education. It further clarifies that technology employed in isolation, without direct instruction, or highly qualified guidance, fails to address those concerns.
The paper looks at the mandates of the Children’s Internet Protection Act (CIPA) and its relationship to school and/or district filtering of websites and the implementation of acceptable use policies. While filtering practices and compliance with CIPA requires students and their parents sign AUPs, the paper stresses the need to educate students about how to be ethical, productive digital citizens. It also encourages school staff to be proactive and aware of the filtering practices used in their schools to understand what is being filtered and how it is being filtered.
Direct to Full Text: White Paper on Educational Technology in Schools (HTML)
A PDF version is also available.
Read the Complete News Release
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