My wife and I are are often concerned or upset by some of the things our kids do on their Chromebooks while at school or home. Right at the top of the list for us would be time they waste surfing the internet while they are supposed to be doing their studies. In the Tennis family we have delved deep into this topic, and the truth is that people sometimes wander down rabbit holes. Kids, with their active minds and increasing technological resources and skills, are no exception.
Now, it may be tempting as a parent to want to simply react against the system. I myself have wanted to wring my hands and question why it's necessary for grade schoolers to have access to the internet at all -- and I think there is some validity to that argument, within reason -- but the truth is that much of the world functions with technology at this point and so kids are going to need these skills eventually.
I've been working hard with CUSD administration and teachers to help improve the District's approach to tech in the classroom, so that parents who are concerned about this (not everyone is) and teachers will have more resources to monitor kids -- both in the classroom and out -- to make sure they are doing what they are supposed to be doing, or at least not getting into trouble.
Here are my key areas of concern, and briefly what is currently being done to protect kids and their time in each area; I'm pleased to have been a principal school board liaison who has represented parents and worked through these issues with CUSD staff:
OVERT SAFETY CONCERNS -- Currently, there are certain "ping" search terms, like "suicide," "rape" or "murder" that will trigger a response from authorities. This comes in the form of an alert that is sent both to parents and school administrators.
INAPPROPRIATE / ADULT CONTENT -- There are a couple of layers of screening at the district level and beyond that are supposed to filter out and prevent kids from visiting offensive sites. We know that no system like this is perfect, but they are effective in blocking a lot of the most overt smut, etc. Parents and teachers have the most power to weed this stuff out through "Securely" and "Goguardian." Read on ...
PARENTAL CONTROL OF INTERNET CONTENT -- In case you are not already aware, there is a program available to every parent who's child uses a school chrome book called "Securely" that enables parents to monitor most if not all websites visited by a student and "block" whatever laundry list they want. In our family, we usually block sites based on whichever ones pop up that we don't approve of. It is especially helpful to prohibit (or threaten to prohibit) big portal sites like "YouTube," "Hulu," "HBO," "Dailymotion" or "Spotify."
TEACHER CONTROL OF CONTENT WHILE IN THE CLASSROOM -- This is one of the least understood of all the tools in the box for mitigating misbehavior on the internet for students. Teachers have a lot of control in the classroom over what the students are doing using a program called "Goguardian." Goguardian accomplishes for teachers what "Securely" does for parents -- enables them to monitor where kids have been, what they are doing now, and controls what each individual student or an entire class can see. There is actually something called a "Scene" that the teacher can program specifically for your student. If you for whatever reason don't like what your kid is looking at in class, work with his or her teacher to set up a custom Scene for your student and empower your child's teacher to take a tougher approach to reining them in, if you want. Be aware, however, that these people are educators and not babysitters, and teacher's main job is to teach knowledge and life skills to an entire classroom of students, so go easy on our heroic staff, recognizing that they are doing an important and difficult job. Discussions around their in-class monitoring of your child's internet behavior should be cooperative and constructive.
As noted, teachers can also MONITOR all Chromebook activity from their computer. One of our kids' teachers frequently posted every child's screen in front of the entire class in real time, so that whatever they were doing on their Chromebook was at all times visible to everyone in the class. Nothing like a little public accountability to get us all being better citizens.
TIME WASTING -- Finally, if you think one or more of your children are just frittering their life away in school playing "Cool Math Games" or doing something else that is not what they are supposed to be doing, feel free to talk to them about it and/or their teacher and principal. Kids are there to learn, not horse around on their Chromebook. Keep in mind, however, that sometimes Hillary Clinton is right, and it "takes a village." Respect everyone involved, and continue to talk to your child and work in coordination with school staff to nurture the kids using every method available. We want to develop awesome little hard workers, not effective little sneaks.
To learn more about what is being done district-wide to confront these various situations, and the tools we at Chico Unified are using to navigate them, watch our full board discussion about internet safety at CUSD. The discussion begins at 40 minutes, 23 seconds:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2SDR2mJotA4
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