Colmers Computer Monitoring Guidance for best practice

Transcription

1 Colmers Computer Monitoring Guidance for best practice

2 Background Having computers in Colmers classrooms enables there to be a fantastic tool for teaching and learning close at hand. Use of computers provides teachers with ideas; enable lesson delivery and planning, enable the sharing of resources, reduce workload, facilitate record keeping, progress tracking and communication with other staff members or the wider educational community. For student use the benefits are widely acknowledged. On the downside is the need for monitoring computer activity, protecting network users from unwanted advertising or malicious hacking, and from inappropriate social exchanges, or even illegal and unprofessional conduct. Colmers has monitored computer use for a long time. There is now a need to put in place a policy that demonstrates how we are to use the enormous amount of data our monitoring system generates. Colmers Acceptable Use Policy (AUP) Colmers Acceptable use Policy is a key document. Colmers School has separate policies for staff and students, but both delineate parameters for using school computers, stating clearly which activities are permissible and which are not. Each time we log on to the network we are reminded of the AUP, if users do not agree then they do not have to log on. Mechanical and Software Filtering We use content filtering on any Colmers computer that may be able to access the Internet. Birmingham Grid for Learning (BGFL) manages our filtering of content accessible via the internet. Filtering is by keyword and barring sites to be viewed. Individual requests to bar specific sites can be made. This is usually a 4 day turn around. Filtering may be done in a number of ways including using a firewall set to block an array of known "bad sites" or by using content filtering software or a content filtering service. Content commonly filtered includes pornography, gratuitous violence and hate literature. Unfortunately, software does not always distinguish between medical information and pornography or historical information and hate literature. Human intervention may be required to train our software and manually block sites and contents as required. This is often referred to as managing false positives.

3 Monitoring Computer Activity There are three ways we monitor activity on computers. 1. For students the first is by the teacher walking around the room or being seated where the student computer screens are easy to view. This has the advantage of being inexpensive and needing minimal expertise. This is still to be encouraged as you can see the frantic mouse activity that ensues when you approach, students attempt to quickly close something, click off a window or close down a machine. The student can log back on or / and the teacher can see what they have been doing on the internet by looking at Internet Browsing History. 2. The second way is our use of software that allows the teacher to monitor the students activities in our IT rooms. This can be used to give feedback, celebrate success and give demonstrations, redirect, or even shut down a computer where the user is off-task or reaching questionable territory. We have Classroom Computer Monitoring Software in all IT Rooms. 3. The third way is the use of our Schoolwide Computer Monitoring Software. This is a piece of software provided by BGFL that captures images of questionable behaviour as the user does it. It enables us to create a safe learning environment for students and teachers, where the freedom to explore is balanced with our commitment to e-safety. Best practice advice (some starting points) Preselecting web sites and Teacher Directed Web Searches Preselecting sites (choosing a range of suitable sites for the students to visit before the lesson) and Teacher Directed Web Searches (for example the teacher suggesting key words for a Google search) is a really effective tip to stop the temptations of students and preventing them stumbling on inappropriate subject matter. This is particularly recommended for sensitive issues. Computer activity in any classroom should focus on the subject matter being taught. Teachers may choose to preselect websites for their topic, or they may be able to take advantage of subscription web resources so that viewed content is guaranteed by the student logging on. (A good example is used by the Maths Department, By using web links and viewable instruction sheets for students the E- Learning portal allows you to do this very easily. Visible monitoring of students as they work in an IT room

4 Where students are using a computer in a lesson the teacher will need to monitor activities closely, as best as they can, making sure the students remain on-task and that their activity, both directed and undirected is appropriate. Using our Classroom Computer Monitoring Software is a useful tool to assist you with this Independent / Less structured use of ICT in class time There can be tremendous benefits of this, for example students using their own key words in Google to search for information regarding their project. Staff do need to consider how they will monitor this type of activity Seating plan for learning A booked IT room might need a planned seating plan for its use to be effective. All rooms have their blind spots, students are very savvy about this. Alternate boy / girl seating is useful if you are short on prep time, if the group is small them leave a computer gap in between students. Do not allow computers to be unattended, including staff. Incidents do occur when students are fetching a printout, or out of their seat. Staff can freeze their whiteboard screen and lock their computer if they need to, leaving material on the whiteboard, and assist students with the IT task. Possible Department management of Situations and Sanctions Level 1 Infringement Low level naughty silly boy or girl stuff caught by or witnessed by you in your class while computers are being used. Examples might be:- a Google search for.. Writing something silly in a user name space on a logon screen The sanctions and correction of poor ICT habits and poor judgement for this sort of AUP infringement lies with you, the teacher, and within the department. So a detention might be appropriate, HOD may need to be informed or involved Level 2 Infringement Concerted or persistent infringement of the AUP in your class as witnessed by you or captured by our Schoolwide Computer Monitoring Software and made available to you.

5 Eg a persistent search for guns, or simply a failure to respond to earlier advice. Still dealt with in the Department, but you might want to involve HOY or the HoE-Learning for support, as clearly this is defiance. Record the infringement in our MIS? Level 3 Infringement E=Safety incident. Child protection issue, follow the E-Safety flowchart E.g. Cyberbullying, inappropriate or image search, logon or attempted logon to something via a proxy or another user either witnessed by yourself and captured (print screen or Classroom Computer Monitoring Software) or you are informed by IT Technicians Level 4 Infringement A very serious E-Safety incident or Child Protection issue, follow the E-Safety flowchart Staff Our Schoolwide Computer Monitoring Software obviously also records computer activity of staff while they are logged on to the school network. Data collected by our Schoolwide Computer Monitoring Software relating to staff will be available to KT, JP and the Head. KT will respond to the situation according to the information given to him. If the incident does warrant the intervention of the Leadership Team or Headteacher then that will occur. For example, overuse of particular sites or facilities during the timetabled day for personal use may be dealt with in a different way than a situation that has led to children being exposed to pornographic images. The Headteacher has a range of options as to how he would deal with a particular situation in accordance with the School s Disciplinary Policy, (available on the Portal).