Thing 21

I had been waiting to get to this "thing" because we are going to be doing a lot of podcasts and vodcasts this year, many of them in my classes. Getting a good background and participating in the process will help me better lead the students through the process. I'm hoping my broadcast class will be able to produce short videos that can be both played in the cafeteria during lunch and be downloaded by the students as vodcasts to keep them informed of student activities during the year. I created a video for students to view when they return to school showing some of the things that have been taking place at and around the school while they were on vacation. The video shows photos of our incoming 6th grade students participating in summer camp activities (all taken at public places where there is no reasonable expectation of privacy and none of the students are identified), the demolition of our field being torn up in order to re-do the field and add a track, and a note about summer school being held on our campus.


I am concerned about the privacy issues technology leads us into. Our district permission form is a bit vague and confusing for most parents leading them to deny permission for anything about their child to be included even in the yearbook or posting of artwork they have created in class. If we want our students to participate in these new technologies, we need to clearly explain to parents what we will and will not use or post without their explicit permission and make them partners in this exploration.

We also need to be very aware of educating our students about protecting their own privacy when they start venturing out into the Internet world.