School

I have been actively following the K12 Online Conference 2009 the past few days. It is a unique concept and has a huge fan following among K12 educators. Learn more about it on the conference website, and follow the tweets and mentions here.

Today, I was excited to follow a presentation on "iPod Touch in the Classroom" by Kern Kelly. Several K12 applications including Stanza, Dictionary and Storykit were discussed. It was more like a tutorial session on how to download applications and use them in a classroom environment.

According to Mr.Kelly, there are several tasks that are performed in classrooms today using iPod Touches in his school district. These include but are not limited to technology surveys, self grading quiz, scores, attendance, administrative observation walkthroughs, disciplinary action forms, etc. They use Google docs for most of these activities. You can see the full presentation here - http://www.tinyurl.com/itouchineducation

Most of us understand the value of providing an iPod Touch to the students' hands as an educational device. It can more or less replace an expensive laptop or the netbook.However, do these applications and browser keep the students safe inside/outside the classroom? The default browser in iPod Touch allows unfiltered internet including content inappropriate for the students. 

Mobicip understands this problem very well and provides a safe browser with CIPA compliance for iPod Touch. Mobicip, the best selling parental control filter for iPod Touch/iPhone, has played a key decision maker to adopt iPod Touch as an educational device in several schools. If your school is considering to buy iPod Touches for your classrooms, remember to install Mobicip before handing them over to your students. Your students can be safe inside and outside school, anytime anywhere!

For more information on the valuable service offered by Mobicip for schools, visit www.mobicip.com.

Online Safety is equally important at home and outside home, especially at school where a kid spends most of his/her day. A parent can always supervise a child’s online activity at home on a day-to-day basis. There are several tools available in the market today to enforce rules on a child’s online activities at home. But is the child safe online at school?

Statistically, kids are safer online at school than at home. The students are usually better supervised at school by teachers, librarians and media specialists. Also, most schools, if not all, use monitoring technologies to oversee the students’ online activities.  Many schools block instant messaging and chat as this is the predominant medium for cyber predators.  

However, as a parent, you are responsible to make sure your child’s school has policies in place to enforce online safety. There are several questions you can ask the school, some of which are,

1. Does the school communicate the rules to students and parents and the consequences of violating them?
2. Does the school protect all student’s personal information on their website?
3. What kind of web content filtering does the school provide?
4. What if students cyberbully others?

A team effort of parents, teachers, librarians, safety officers and school officials can make progress in ensuring that students’ online experience is as safe as possible.