Monday, January 25, 2021

SOPPA Information for Teachers -- Part 2

 This post is part 2 on my series of informational posts about the SOPPA law changes that take effect July 1, 2021. It's not often that laws regarding student privacy trickle down to the classroom teacher level, but this one does. If you're wondering why I appear to be dragging my feet when it comes to sharing what exactly classroom teachers need to do to work within compliance, I assure you there is a method to my madness!

Quite often, teachers are given directives without any kind of backstory. I could easily lay out what you need to do for SOPPA, but I am willing to bet you will also want to know why the heck you have to do that! This is where the feet dragging comes in! I want to be sure to ex
plain this enough that we teachers understand what is happening.

In my last post, I tried to give some context regarding SOPPA. This week, I hope to help you understand what is required of operators. Operators are the organizations that provide the online services we ask our students to use. The operators have access to student information that we may not even be aware of, and that has not escaped the eyes of those who keep an eye on that! That's why SOPPA requires operators to maintain the following:

  • Implement reasonable security practices to protect student information
  • Delete a student's information upon request
  • Publicly state the types of data they collect
  • Notify schools of any data breaches
  • Never engage in targeted advertising
  • Never rent or sell student information
  • Never disclose student data
Why does this matter to the classroom teacher? Because if you're like me, you don't have an ever-loving clue what kinds of data is collected from students by these operators, nor do you know what kind of security practices they have, nor do you know about data breaches, nor do you know what they are doing with the student data, nor do you care, I'm guessing! Other people care, though, and that's why this is in place. 

Because of this, teachers may find that some of the services they've used in the past with students don't comply with SOPPA, or they may discover that something they want to use doesn't comply, and that can inhibit what happens in the classroom. 

Next week: the school's responsibilities!

Resources for this post:
Posted by at 2 comments:

Tuesday, January 19, 2021

SOPPA Info For Teachers -- Part 1

 I am going to start a series of posts about SOPPA. Often, laws about student information and privacy do not have a direct impact on the classroom teacher, as the compliance is managed at the district level. However, SOPPA, which goes into effect on July 1, 2021, will have an impact on teachers at the classroom level, so I am hopeful that the information I share in these posts will be useful to you!

SOPPA stands for Student Online Personal Protection Act. As you are well aware, students use numerous online services as part of their learning. As more services become available, there is also increasing concern over what student data and information is being collected by these online services and how that data and information is being used. SOPPA is intended to make that information more readily available and transparent to parents as well as to ensure that any data and information collected is safeguarded and used to help maintain a beneficial learning experience for students. 

What kinds of student information are we talking about? This includes anything that is personally identifiable information about the student, or information that is linked to personally identifiable information. This might include things such as

  • Educational records
  • Student email address
  • First and last name
  • Home address
  • Phone number
  • Special education data
  • Grades
  • Health and medical records
  • Social security number
  • Biometric information
  • Disabilities
  • Socioeconomic information
  • Food purchases
  • Documents
  • Search activity
  • Photos
  • Voice recordings
  • Geolocation information
Many of these kinds of information are maintained at the district level, but some of these things teachers have at the classroom level, and some of these things are shared when students use online services for learning. For example, any time a student logs in to an online service, some of this information is shared with the online service -- likely things like name and email address, but it could also be things like location information, and documents or files, too. One of the things SOPPA intends is to determine which online services (called "operators" in SOPPA language) are collecting what kinds of student information.

Bottom line -- what does this mean for you as a classroom teacher? It means you will need to be aware of which services collect student information and whether or not our district is currently able to use that online service with students. Don't worry -- more information will be coming to you on how that will be done!

Next week: What Are the responsibilities of the operators?

Resources for this post:

Posted by at No comments:

Tuesday, January 5, 2021

Mad Libs Goes "High Tech"

 I think everyone loves Mad Libs! Kids enjoy the silly stories that result (teachers like the sneaky way it teaches parts of speech), and as adults, I'm guessing we've all laughed at the NSFW versions we've created! Wouldn't it be fun to be able to let kids create their own Mad Lib stories? It can be done pretty easily using Google Forms, Google Sheets, the Autocrat add-on, and Google Docs.

If you're thinking that's too many tools to use, don't worry! It's actually not :-)

If you're interested in how to do this, click here for step by step directions!

How can you incorporate Mad Libs into your curriculum? Here are some ideas!

  • Have students "rewrite" a story, poem, event from history, process, biography, passage from literature, or character sketch.
  • Challenge students to use vocabulary words.
  • Practice parts of speech.
  • Focus on using specific, descriptive words to practice creating imagery.
  • Have students create a class silly story; assign a section of the story to each student, then compile them into one large class story.
As an example, here is how I am using this:
  1. I am reading a story to students in grade 3 about a character who signs up online to receive a free game in the mail. He ends up getting tons of goofy junk sent to his home. The objective of the story is to teach students about not sharing their personal information online to avoid getting scammed and ending up with spam instead of what they thought they were getting.
  2. After the story, I will debrief with the kids what they learned.
  3. I did a short rewrite of the story and then turned it into a Mad Libs activity for the kids to complete so they have their own version of the story.
Does this sound like something you want to try? Let me know and I would be THRILLED to come help you set it up!

via NETFLIX on GIPHY

P.S. In case you thought I was smart enough to figure out how to do this on my own, ummm nope! I had the idea to do Mad Libs but wasn't sure the best way to do it, so I did a little research and used this site to help me figure it out!
Posted by at 2 comments:
Subscribe to: Posts (Atom)