AUP Critique - Cedarburg School District

This is my critique of a technology acceptable use policy for a K-12 school. The school district is Cedarburg School District, located in Cedarburg, Wisconsin. The link to the critique can be found in my sidebar.

This has been a very interesting class. I learned a lot and have found many articles to read at later times. Thank you very much for your time! Take care.

Ten Big Ideas of School Leadership

The article is based on ten ideas that Principal Mike McCarthy learned during his years as a principal, which include main the students the focal point of the school, to have a clear vision that guides all of your actions and to surround yourself with others who will want to work towards this vision also, to take responsibility when problems arise and to allow others in the school to do so as well, making change a swift process, not putting excessive value on consensus, and so forth. Judging by the comments below the article, this advice seems to be largely agreed with; the only one of this ideas that the commenters seemed to take any issue with was his assertion that between handling the stressors that the teachers will be going through, the principal is unlikely to ever have a good day.

The NETS-A standard here is the first one, the standard of visionary leadership, especially the first point, regarding the importance of supporting institutional practice and maximizing the performance of school and district leaders.

Technology Leadership: Enhancing Positive Educational Change

The article is divided into four sections: Educational Leadership Now and Then, Transformational Leadership, Versatile Leadership, and Relational Leadership.

The Educational Leadership Now and Then begins by giving definitions of leadership, which include "influence", "developing potential and building community", and "a change or adaptive process to address conflicts in the values people hold, or to diminish the gap between the values people stand for and the reality they face." It then goes on to outline some of the changes that educational leadership has made over time, such as the change from a managerial style to one that also incorporates the instructional aspects that come with education.

Transformational Leadership is the type of leadership that focuses more on group development and vision and mission, with characteristics that center around change and the forming of relationships and the development/sharing of knowledge.

Executive Leadership is specific to executive leaders (as opposed to other types of leaders) and is primarily concerned with maintaining and coordinating the organization and concentrating on the organization's purpose and direction.

Versatile Leadership is the idea that a leader needs to have more than one approach to leadership and know when is the best time to use which approach and how to best use the approach needed for a situation. The example given is that a principal needs to have a military commander's ability to lead, a CEO's knowledge of management, a lawyer's ability to negotiate and reason, and an educator's ability to understand students.

The final leadership category is Relational Leadership, the leadership that needs to be aware and able to comprehend the various interpersonal relationships involving those who he or she is leading. There are listed six areas in which a leader must be capable: leading employees, work team orientation, managing conflict, knowledge of interpersonal dimensions, managing change in others, and being able to confront employee problems. A leader who is skilled in this form of leadership will be able to be compassionate to his/her employees, know how to relate to them and how to manage the relationships that form between them and between them and him/her, respect the personal values of the employees, and be able to put others at ease.

The NETS-A standard that is applicable here is the first standard, the standard of visionary leadership.

Modeling to Assist 'Teachers as Master Learners' Model

The article talks about the need for educators to not only teach, but also be willing to learn. The rationale behind this is that while an educator with a lot of technical knowledge of a subject will be able to impart that knowledge to his or her students, the student will not be able to develop the ability to learn (as opposed to just acquiring knowledge) if the educator himself/herself is not capable of learning and teaching the student what it is to learn. I think this must relate to the old adage that by learning you can teach (and vice-versa).

One of the primary concerns of the article is how to change educators' mindsets so that they will be willing to be the students first, before they are able to be teachers to their own students, particularly where new advancements in technology are concerned.

The NETS-A standard applicable here is the third standard, especially the fourth part regarding the need to stay current with new research and trends and the new uses of technology in order to promote student learning. Part of staying current with these issues may be also having to sit down and learn how to use them, much in the same way that the students will eventually have to.

Diigo

The assignment is to look at Dr. Pierce's Diigo bookmarks.

Right away, the link that caught my eye first was the bookmark to the Comic Creator. I'm a big fan of comics, both Western and Eastern, so the idea of using comics as a way of helping students learn and process their ideas is pretty cool to me. Some of the lessons listed on the page (Comic Makeovers: Examining Race, Class, Ethnicity, and Gender in the Media, Happily Ever After? Exploring Character, Conflict, and Plot in Dramatic Tragedy, Analyzing and Comparing Medieval and Modern Ballads, etc.) sound like they'd be fascinating to read.

Other links on the Diigo page are related to education and there are some articles regarding social networks and bullying that I'm interested to read. I'll bookmark the page to read at a later date.

How to Learn Something for Nothing

This article is about ways in which students can learn a wide variety of things by way of the internet without having to be subject to the fees that sometimes come with in-class lessons. Examples of these would be having free online test prep for high school students, using sites like Hulu and YouTube to host lessons, and making textbooks available in ebook and audiobook format at sites like Open Culture.

I think this could be a great idea, especially for those who are not in a financial or geographic position to be able to take the classes in person, or for those who may want to take the class, but have other time constraints and obligations, or even those who might be ambivalent about taking a class because they're not sure if they'll like it enough to stick with it and don't want to potentially waste the money.

The NETS-A standard at work here is the second standard, the standard regarding digital-age learning culture, particularly the part about providing a learner-centered environment with the technology and resources to meet the diverse needs of all learners.

Social Networking Legal Update

Middle school students posted a social networking profile of the school principal indicating he was a pedophile and sex addict. Can the school punish the student although the student created the site at home? How does the first amendment protect the student? Does it protect the student?

I don't think that the school can do anything to punish the student, as the profile was created on a non-school-related website, without using equipment belonging to the school, and done away from the school grounds. The principal might be able to seek legal action on his own outside of the school, though. If the profile can be found to be untrue and created with malice, then it could possibly considered libel, which may mean that the students wouldn't be as protected by the first amendment. There is also the point that the profile only indicated the negative things about the principal. Perhaps the students' first amendment rights might be protected in this case because they never outright stated anything.

A way to prevent this from happening in the future might be to issue a statement to the student body on a whole about what the legal ramifications of committing such acts would be, or possibly putting a section in the student code of conduct regarding similar situations.

A female vice-principal sued students and parents claiming intentional infliction of emotional distress, conspiracy, defamation, libel, and negligence when the students posted a fake social networking profile that displayed her name and photo along with explicit, graphic sexual content. Was the vice-principals' suite successful? Why or why not?

It is possible that the suit would have worked, since the vice-principal filed the lawsuit outside of the school (as opposed to the previous case, where the principal tried to punish the students through the school system). Because her name and photo, along with the explicit material, was included in the profile, maybe the vice-principal would have a greater chance of winning, because she would have concrete evidence of what was libelous.

Like the previous scenario, maybe the way to prevent this sort of thing from happening in the future would be to address the student body and make them aware of the legal consequences of such actions.

A middle school student creates a vulgarity-laced social network tirade against her former principal. The principal sues for harassment. Is the principal successful in her suit?

It might depend on what the contents of the tirade were and how the student behaved. If it was just the student writing a foul-worded rant on her personal social networking account of choice, the teacher may not be successful, since that could possibly be considered part of the student's free speech. If the tirade involved threats of violence against the principal or the student was repeatedly engaging in unwanted contact with the principal, then I think that the principal could be successful in her suit.

To prevent an incident like this from happening again...maybe the principal could try contacting the parents as a first measure?

Student sues university for dismissing her from an educational program because she, against the direction of her supervisors, advertised her social networking page to her students. On the page she posted photos of herself in an intoxicated state and she made disparaging remarks about her cooperating teacher. Does the student have recourse against the University for Dismissal? Should the student be re-instated? Why or why not?

The student teacher may have recourse, or at least a chance to argue her case, because the material in her social networking page would be protected as free speech, provided that the university is not a private institution. She maybe should not be reinstated (or, at the least, should not be allowed to complete that teaching experience), though, because by advertising her social networking page, she may have reflected badly upon her university and she would have introduced something into the classroom that could be considered disruptive.

To prevent such a thing from happening in the future, perhaps a general rule should be made that does not allow student teachers to share personal blogs, websites, e-mail addresses, and other social networking items with any of the students who they are teaching, with the consequences of violating that rule spelled out from the beginning.

The school elected to non-renew a teacher’s contract because the male teacher, who had a social networking profile that included photos of naked men, engaged in non-school related conversations with his students via the profile. After being advised to discontinue the practice, the teacher deactivated the profile and substituted an essentially similar one. The teacher sued for violations of his first amendment rights of speech and association. Did the teacher prevail in his suit? Why or why not?

I think it is possible that the teacher would not have won his suit, because the decision to renew or not renew a teacher's contract is entirely up to the school's senior administration and there was no breaking of the already existing contract. While the teacher has his first amendments rights, the school would also have the right to choose whether or not to renew an employee's contract, maybe especially if the employee has disregarded advice from his supervisors (regarding the changing of the profile). I am not sure whether there has been a violation of the teacher's first amendment rights, because it is never stated what the nature of the photos or the non-school related conversations were.

Perhaps one thing that a school could do is when hiring new faculty, they can make clear that they do not advise engaging with students who still attend the school.

A student disciplined for creating a parody site of the high school principal on a social networking site sued the school and the administrators as individuals for violating the student’s first amendment rights. The student had created the site on his own away from school, but used the principal’s photo from the school’s web page. Who do you sympathize with the student or the principal? Why?

I sympathize with the student, because, since the website was created away from school grounds and without the use of school property, it seems unfair to subject the student to the school's disciplinary measures. While using the principal's school picture does put the action in questionable light, the fact that it was done on the student's own time does outweigh that; in addition to this, the website was mentioned to be a parody, which I think affects how use of a person's identity is viewed.

A teacher, who is a hunting enthusiast is suspended from teaching without pay because of a Facebook profile photo in which she is training her hunting rifle at the camera. Does the teacher have a case to recoup lost wages? Why?

I would think that she would be able to. The photo did not show her doing anything illegal, since it's not illegal for teachers to own guns, she was presumably not aiming at the camera to cause physical harm to the photographer, she was most likely not on school grounds when the picture was taken, and nothing she was doing was interfering with her ability to teach.

To prevent such an occurrence from happening again, perhaps the school can meet with the teacher and gain more information about the picture and the context in which it was taken, instead of immediately reacting.