E-Learning & Online Teaching

Fear is contagious…

I was asked recently if web publishing pictures of kids at a summer camp on a school website was a violation of the alphabet’s soup of federal law (Coppa, Cipa, Ferpa).

Feeling compelled to ask this question and worrying about the answers says a lot about the media hyped climate of fear swirling around kids use of Web 2.0 technologies. Schools feel responsible and vulnerable and tend to react by locking things down. Lock downs may stifle the use of web tech in schools — one place where kids could learn the evaluation skills needed to protect themselves on the web. Ugly Irony.

Here’s a briefing update on new research sponsored by the MacArthur Foundation. It doesn’t surprise me that Kids aren’t learning Web 2.0 skills in school.  Perhaps outside of school is where this kind of education is destined to take place?

Are wired kids well served by schools? | Tech news blog - CNET News.com

PALO ALTO, Calif.–Among the generation of kids growing up wired, many teens are hyper-motivated to learn a special skill like how to create a podcast, direct a YouTube video, publish an anime site, or hack an iPhone. ”

• (tags: web2.0)

Here’s my 5cents worth of research:

Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA): http://www.ed.gov/policy/gen/guid/fpco/ferpa/index.html This federal law addresses privacy of student records and parent & student rights to access those educational records. Photos of kids at summer camp aren’t protected educational records.

Children’s Internet Protection Act (Cipa): http://www.fcc.gov/cgb/consumerfacts/cipa.html “Is a federal law enacted by Congress in December 2000 to address concerns about access to offensive content over the Internet on school and library computers.” This law regulates school & libraries receiving federal e-rate funding. It requires establishing internet safety policies and filtering technology to protect kids. See what the ALA has to say about CIPA: http://www.ala.org/ala/washoff/woissues/civilliberties/cipaweb/cipa.cfm

Photos of kids at summer camp aren’t harmful online content.

This is the law that is likely the source of confusion:
Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA) http://www.coppa.org/coppa.htm
This is an FTC act aimed at website collection of personal information from kids under 13 for commercial purposes. The FTC is regulating commercial sites directed at children. Photographs are not mentioned in the act.

Personal information is defined as:

“The Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act and Rule apply to individually identifiable information about a child that is collected online, such as full name, home address, email address, telephone number or any other information that would allow someone to identify or contact the child. The Act and Rule also cover other types of information — for example, hobbies, interests and information collected through cookies or other types of tracking mechanisms — when they are tied to individually identifiable information.”

We are not collecting photographs online via sign-up forms designed to attract kids. COPPA Parent notification and permissions are tied to data collection directly from kids by a commercial website. Posting pictures of kids having fun on a school website is clearly not the object of COPPA regulations.

• PBS Teachers | learning.now . Schools drop laptop programs - but are they dropping the ball as well? | PBSSchools drop laptop programs - but are they dropping the ball as well?(tags: 1:1)
• PBS Teachers | learning.now . How Not to Use MySpace in the Classroom | PBSHow Not to Use MySpace in the Classroom(tags: socialnetworking)
• PBS Teachers | learning.now . New Initiative Seeks to Educate Teachers About Online Security | PBSIn the wake of the Julie Amero legal battle, a group of technology experts and teachers is pulling together an initiative to improve the Internet security skills of teachers and administrators.(tags: saf)
• PBS Teachers | learning.now . Do Internet Filters Undermine the Teaching of 21st Century Citizenship? | PBSWe all know that Internet filtering policies have the best interest of students in mind. But what are we sacrificing when we don’t allow educators to override filters at their own professional discretion?(tags: filters filtering)
• PBS Teachers | learning.now . Debating Federal Funding for Online Safety Curricula | PBS(tags: online safety)

• PBS Teachers | learning.now . Students and Copyright: Discipline and Punish? | PBSMicrosoft has just come out with a new survey on student’s attitudes towards online copyright. The research suggests that very few students have a strong understanding of the issue(tags: copyright)
• PBS Teachers | learning.now . Questioning the Notion of Online Predators | PBSA new study published by the American Psychological Association (APA) raises tough questions about the conventional wisdom regarding online predators.(tags: safety)
• PBS Teachers | learning.now . Judge Dismisses Student Lawsuit Against Plagiarism Detection Service | PBSA group of Virginia high school students who sued a plagiarism detection service on the grounds of copyright infringement has had its case dismissed.(tags: turnitin plagiarism)
• AUPsiSafe AUP policy infor(tags: isafe safety aup)
• Blogging.pdf (application/pdf Object)isafe blogging policy(tags: isafe safety blog)
• COPPA - Children’s Online Privacy ProtectionFTC regulation text.(tags: safety)
• P2PNetworking.pdfisafe peer to peer networking document(tags: isafe safety aup)

This entry was posted on Thursday, April 24th, 2008 at 1:31 am and is filed under Web 2.0, e-learning, research. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.