Digital Citizenship Rant

It won't be a rant here... but it definitely was at 4th period in my Y11 English class today.

Obviously I'd been stewing all weekend over the issue with some silly students accessing a Teacher's password and sharing it around school. They'd discussed it on Yik Yak even. And this was early last month. I just didn't get the screenshots til this weekend when one of my amazing students shared them with me.

I knew there was an issue and I'd discussed it quite openly last month. The fact that there is NO WIFI PASSWORD obviously is not getting into my student's heads. There are only teacher's individual passwords for their logins which is also used to access their internet.

As one student pointed out today - their login password can't access the internet on their devices. Not yet anyway.

I reiterated the point that their stupidity in handing out teacher's passwords could possibly cause the hard work we've been doing around moving towards BYOD to go down the drain.

I talked extensively about the need to have a positive digital footprint. That everything is searchable. That you can be accountable for everything you post, share, like etc.

I talked so long that we only had about 30 minutes left of the session.

I think they get it now though. Hopefully.

And that was only one class.

I told them I didn't want to know who had been passing out passwords or sharing them around school. That eventually I'd find out and that I'm fully aware of what they write on Yik Yak. They now know that not only did I Geofence our school - that I also monitor what's written there. Especially when it says #WHHSProblems.

That - is negative school branding.

Makes me so so frustrated. Gah.

Silly silly behaviours.

Teach digital citizenship. Show students your digital footprint. Be open. Tell them and share your mistakes so that they are more likely to make better decisions after and before they make their mistakes too. It's all learning. But at least we can teach them how to be safe while learning.