An APU is an Acceptable Use Policy for using the internet. It helps to protect the students, faculty, and university in general. The guidelines help prevent viruses, identity theft, and fraud.
My high school, Kingwood High School, website can be found at, http://www.humbleisd.net/education/school/school.php?sectionid=17. My high school's APU is very similar to the guidelines that were suggested in the online readings.
The CIPA requires that public libraries and schools are involved with LSTA and E-rate to make sure that they are using filtering software.
My high school had about 3,000 students plus faculty. They had a network that was required for every student to use in order to access the internet at school. During registration, everyone was given a password and username that you would use for your Sophomore, Junior, and Senior year. The ninth grades campus had a different set of passwords and usernames. I used it a lot. Every time I used a computer at school, especially for research papers, I had to log into the network. I thought it was really helpful as well. I had easy access to a lot of resources on the online library and in different databases. As far as things that my parents were able to access, they were able to look at my grades online. I think that in schools web filtering is really appropriate. It is really helpful for teachers as well. They do not have to spend all their time monitoring what websites students are accessing. The article is not that surprising. Kids are amazing at finding ways to get around things. It just means that although teachers may not have to constantly monitor the kids but they still need to at least be around and not leave kids to their own devices.
2 comments:
I am impressed by the number of students at your high school and the access that was available for so many, I went to a high school with only 600 students. And it is interesting that the ninth graders had different sets of password then the sophomores-seniors. I wonder if there was a specific reason for splitting the user name and password distribution up that way?
I was actually quite surprised to read the article describing how to get past the filtering system, but I can see your point that kids really are computer savvy these days and could probably get through quite easily. I guess that more careful teacher and network monitoring will be necessary.
I was very interested and pleased to hear that students at your HS had access to technology available and were apparently encouraged to use it! Your experience, I fear, is still in the minority. There is so much available to students it seems irresponsible not to use it.
Do you know how your school district managed to acquire that many technological tools?
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