Reflection

This course provided tools to help educators decipher privacy terms and conditions.  I have read many privacy agreements.  However, about a third of the way through I realize I have no idea what they are saying.  So, I just click agree.  The Privacy Technical Assistance Center document is a game changer for helping me understand what I should and should NOT be agreeing to. 

I loved the website of approved apps for the classroom.  WOW!  Now you have a list of reasons why you should use an app in the classroom. 

I learned a lot as I never really knew what I had to look for in an approved site, I am always very apprehensive and just go along with whatever is approved and other teachers in my school are already using. Being a mom of kids that go to school at a different district I get to see other educational apps and can now decipher for myself what I think of them as a parent and if they are good enough to tell my co-workers about for our students. I liked the resources and communities available under Common Sense Educators.

I really like the apps evaluation pages. It is vital that we always check to make sure the apps are district approved & protect our students. Written parental consent must be given to even list student info in the directory. This video reminded me of the importance of reading the full disclosure and terms closely. When in doubt, ask the tech department.

I knew that student information shouldn't be shared and we had to be careful about how their information was used, but I didn't realize how deep it went with data mining and targeted advertisement.  I found this to be very informative.

I have learned that teacher have just as much responsibility in vetting apps as the technology coordinators within districts. 

I love hearing the reminder about including student PII in emails.  The information from the Privacy Technical Assistance Center chart was very good.  To sum it all up, use apps approved by the district tech team and discuss issues and concerns with them. 

It was a refresher on many points, particularly FERPA.  I found the most useful information to be the app evaluations on the commonsense.org site and what to review in apps that have not been district or school approved.

I learned about Common sense's website that allowed you to be able to tell if an app is secure or not. I feel like this is very helpful information. I also learned that when in doubt it is best to talk to someone in IT to tell if a website or app is secure. Lastly, I learned that there are more laws and regulations about students privacy than I originally knew with FERPA.

I learned the different elements of student privacy and what all is included in PII. There are more guidelines to follow and not just FERPA. I also now know the best policy to follow when desiring to use a new app in school and the resources available to make my best judgement when data is not available to support an app's safety.