Tag: Hawaii Department of Education
Letting Kids Be Kids, Online
Being part of a public school system, Ms. Vandersande’s school adheres to the Hawaii Department of Education’s computer use policy.
Beyond that, she does not have any additional Internet policy. Part of being in a public school means that the Internet access is already filtered, and Ms. Vandersande has determined that that is enough to ensure that children are cooperating online. She is vocal about allowing students to explore the online world and build their digital literacies. As Ms. Vandersande states, “I didn’t really set any policies “in place”. Kids came in and asked to use the computers, and I said, “sure!” The asked if they were “allowed” to use Google, and I said “sure!” The asked if they could print, and I said, “sure!”
When I asked if she is concerned about monitoring what the students are doing online, she shared a funny anecdote with me.
The worst thing that has happened out of all of this freedom is that a student printed a Google image search of “sad puppies”. It wasted a lot of paper and ink, but it sure was cute!