Do any of the professional educators out there have views on possible child protection issues for sites which allow registrations from external users? Ought we to consider asking users to confirm that they are over 16 before letting them have accounts (in which case, what's to stop them fibbing about their age?)
Hi Rosemary,
We use our Moodle as an addition to our classrooms and get around this problem by using enrolment keys.
Students and parents/guardians are able to self register but require the enrolment key from a teacher.
As the site admin I always ask for confirmation (name for son/daughter) from a "parent" who contacts me requesting site access. I then verify their identity before supplying the key.
Hope this helps.
Jeff
We use our Moodle as an addition to our classrooms and get around this problem by using enrolment keys.
Students and parents/guardians are able to self register but require the enrolment key from a teacher.
As the site admin I always ask for confirmation (name for son/daughter) from a "parent" who contacts me requesting site access. I then verify their identity before supplying the key.
Hope this helps.
Jeff
Jeff,
We do not permit parent or guardian access to Moodle discussions. If a parent wants to read Sally's posts, we recommend them spending some quality time with their child and reading their posts "together." I do not enroll parents in student classes. I guess I would if the Principal requested it, or the parents had the school district's Superintendent require me to enroll them. But, that defeats my goal to provide students with "their learning community". They have nothing to hide, but, teenages are funny about things. We do not allow Chats. Forum discussions must be task related- it is part of their evaluation. I can see that parental visits to a Moodle course might have some advantages, but I know from experience when Mama comes to visit my classroom, little Johnnie does not say much, and everyone "shuts down". I would not want parents going to the beauty shop and gossiping about how that dumb kids in Mr. Blake's class is so far behind because his mama is in jail (not that this would ever happen or ever has...
). Parents are more competative than the kids in most cases. They do not care sometimes who's feeling they hurt. I do not like the idea, based on the caliber of parents I deal with, to allow them to poke around. You never know these days. I don't want to be negative, but it is true.
We do not permit parent or guardian access to Moodle discussions. If a parent wants to read Sally's posts, we recommend them spending some quality time with their child and reading their posts "together." I do not enroll parents in student classes. I guess I would if the Principal requested it, or the parents had the school district's Superintendent require me to enroll them. But, that defeats my goal to provide students with "their learning community". They have nothing to hide, but, teenages are funny about things. We do not allow Chats. Forum discussions must be task related- it is part of their evaluation. I can see that parental visits to a Moodle course might have some advantages, but I know from experience when Mama comes to visit my classroom, little Johnnie does not say much, and everyone "shuts down". I would not want parents going to the beauty shop and gossiping about how that dumb kids in Mr. Blake's class is so far behind because his mama is in jail (not that this would ever happen or ever has...
John,
I could see that depending on the type of material you had on your site the problems you mention certainly could arise. Yikes!
It is unfortunate that parents/guardians are (sometimes) worse behaving than our students.
The way we use our site is more of an information/communication tool. Teachers will:
Jeff
I could see that depending on the type of material you had on your site the problems you mention certainly could arise. Yikes!
It is unfortunate that parents/guardians are (sometimes) worse behaving than our students.The way we use our site is more of an information/communication tool. Teachers will:
- post homework/assignments
- use the calendar to list events
- post handouts
- relay messages using forums
- post marks (via code name)
Jeff
I read a post from a school system that has similar questions about this issue, so the edited the pHp code of Moodle on their server so that teachers would not have the option to ever allow external users to register. That way teachers do not have to deal with that issue. If you are talking about courses for adults, you have a point. I a 13 year old wanted to fib about being 21 and sign up for an adult course somewhere on the pleasures of ...well I see your point...I can tell you, that my Moodle with my middle school students contains no contact info, ie phone numbers, addresses, etc. Kids in my school that are tech savy, use their cell phones to get into all sorts of weird stuff, and I can not protect them outside school. I make a conserted effort to educate them on the danger of providing such information. We had a student in our county resently that was a victim of stranger abduction. I photo copied the newspaper article and each semester, distribute the article in class as part of our "acceptable use policy" training. Educators have to be proactive, but it is also a parental issue as well. This may not be exactly what you asked in reference to professional educator's views. It is law in the US. http://www.cybertelecom.org/cda/cipa.htm http://www.copacommission.org/commission/original.shtml
I am not sure what other professional educators are required to do, but every school district in the US has policies on this issue. If under aged hoodlums can buy alcoholic beverages and cigarettes by fibbing about their age, you are right, if you are just allowing "anyone" to registister for a Moodle class, you really never know...I only allow students that are not enrolled in my school to enroll in my Moodle.
I am not sure what other professional educators are required to do, but every school district in the US has policies on this issue. If under aged hoodlums can buy alcoholic beverages and cigarettes by fibbing about their age, you are right, if you are just allowing "anyone" to registister for a Moodle class, you really never know...I only allow students that are not enrolled in my school to enroll in my Moodle.
I can't quite get my head round this either.
At the moment, our Moodle is closed - only our pupils and teachers have access, however, in an ideal world, I'd like to make the resources available more widely, such as by making them available to those educated at home or overseas, and to extend the opportunities for social learning beyond the bounds of my school -so that my pupils can learn from and with pupils in very different settings.
I come up against the big issue of how do you know someone is who they say they are. Shibboleth will make it possible to authenticate users from other schools, but such users are already fairly well catered for.
I wonder how much can be done through the groups system - setting up separate groups for local and external users, who can't see one another's posts etc, I suspect not enough to be able to assure my pupils' parents that their children are quite safe. Therefore, the only option seems to be two parallel courses, in which both sets miss out. Furthermore, what is my duty of care towards those enrolled in the external course?
The social and legal aspects seem far more complex than the technical ones!
At the moment, our Moodle is closed - only our pupils and teachers have access, however, in an ideal world, I'd like to make the resources available more widely, such as by making them available to those educated at home or overseas, and to extend the opportunities for social learning beyond the bounds of my school -so that my pupils can learn from and with pupils in very different settings.
I come up against the big issue of how do you know someone is who they say they are. Shibboleth will make it possible to authenticate users from other schools, but such users are already fairly well catered for.
I wonder how much can be done through the groups system - setting up separate groups for local and external users, who can't see one another's posts etc, I suspect not enough to be able to assure my pupils' parents that their children are quite safe. Therefore, the only option seems to be two parallel courses, in which both sets miss out. Furthermore, what is my duty of care towards those enrolled in the external course?
The social and legal aspects seem far more complex than the technical ones!
Worrying.
Our site is aimed at recruitment and training of mainly adult volunteers for an animal welfare charity, so making it closed to people we don't already know would defeat the object. I don't allow automatic access to the training course areas (new users have to email me and ask for an enrollment key), and some areas are only opened to active volunteers who are actually working for the charity.
My problem is that the site would be of quite legitimate interest to some teenagers, and in fact they might well be safer here than subscribing to some of the Usenet pet newsgroups, for example.
Maybe a partial solution is some safety reminders on the front page.
Our site is aimed at recruitment and training of mainly adult volunteers for an animal welfare charity, so making it closed to people we don't already know would defeat the object. I don't allow automatic access to the training course areas (new users have to email me and ask for an enrollment key), and some areas are only opened to active volunteers who are actually working for the charity.
My problem is that the site would be of quite legitimate interest to some teenagers, and in fact they might well be safer here than subscribing to some of the Usenet pet newsgroups, for example.
Maybe a partial solution is some safety reminders on the front page.
Do you have material on the site that is not suited for children, and that's why you want to verify their age?
Would it be too much infiltration in their personal lives if you would require a phone number from persons you don't know, and then call them back and give the enrolment key, and chat a while. Or give your phone number in the verification email and ask them to call you, maybe better that way so they don't have to give their number and it doesn't cost you anything Thus it would be harder to spoof their age. You might give them a warm welcome in the same time.
With a lot of users this is a time/cost issue also, but with one or two every week or two it's not too bad.
Would it be too much infiltration in their personal lives if you would require a phone number from persons you don't know, and then call them back and give the enrolment key, and chat a while. Or give your phone number in the verification email and ask them to call you, maybe better that way so they don't have to give their number and it doesn't cost you anything
With a lot of users this is a time/cost issue also, but with one or two every week or two it's not too bad.
Our content isn't a problem - my main concern is really participation in discussion forums.
At the moment our site is small and I monitor all forums, so I'd pick up any "inappropriate" activity. However I can't guarantee 365 day monitoring over a significant volume of discussions. This is a potential risk to children because of the possibility that they might be encouraged to meet up with other users in an unsafe setting. The kind of thing I'm envisaging is a situation where the child says, for example, "I'd love to get to the Save the Whales demonstration, but my mum can't drive me that day," and they get offered a lift by someone we don't know and can't check on.
At the moment our site is small and I monitor all forums, so I'd pick up any "inappropriate" activity. However I can't guarantee 365 day monitoring over a significant volume of discussions. This is a potential risk to children because of the possibility that they might be encouraged to meet up with other users in an unsafe setting. The kind of thing I'm envisaging is a situation where the child says, for example, "I'd love to get to the Save the Whales demonstration, but my mum can't drive me that day," and they get offered a lift by someone we don't know and can't check on.
I worked with Oracle's Help Us Help Foundation when Think.com first came out in the US. I remember that we could only use the children's first names and that we did not want to post the children's pictures. They have a Privacy Policy at their site:
http://www.think.com/dsc/docs/think_pp_10082004USEN00407.shtml
This policy may have changed in the four or five years it has been since I worked with them, but it may help you get started.
Kevin
Kevin Kelly
Assistant Director
Center for the Enhancement of Teaching
San Francisco State University
http://www.think.com/dsc/docs/think_pp_10082004USEN00407.shtml
This policy may have changed in the four or five years it has been since I worked with them, but it may help you get started.
Kevin
Kevin Kelly
Assistant Director
Center for the Enhancement of Teaching
San Francisco State University
Rosemary,
I am glad you brought this up. I need to involve parents in my virtual lab for both child-protection and quality of education. First, most of my students come from home-educated backgrounds. Home educated kids and parents tend to be highly motivated and ruggedly individualistic. The parents want to hold their kids accountable -- it is largely what drove them to take a more active role in their kid's education. I also want to make it clear to all my teachers and mentors that the parents will hold them accountable as well. I want everyone to know that we are serving both the parents and the kids, and are willing and able to improve our processes as needed.
My teachers and mentors will also be accountable to our civil authorities.
I am a new Moodle user and have not yet discovered how to do this. I am thinking that parents should be a kind of limited "teacher" with permissions to view their children's records, read and comment on student-teacher transactions, review projects and subject material, and to a more limited degree, understand the "spirit" of their children's peer relationships, e.g., constructive/destructive, stimulating/boring, kind/unkind, etc.
-Ron
I am glad you brought this up. I need to involve parents in my virtual lab for both child-protection and quality of education. First, most of my students come from home-educated backgrounds. Home educated kids and parents tend to be highly motivated and ruggedly individualistic. The parents want to hold their kids accountable -- it is largely what drove them to take a more active role in their kid's education. I also want to make it clear to all my teachers and mentors that the parents will hold them accountable as well. I want everyone to know that we are serving both the parents and the kids, and are willing and able to improve our processes as needed.
My teachers and mentors will also be accountable to our civil authorities.
I am a new Moodle user and have not yet discovered how to do this. I am thinking that parents should be a kind of limited "teacher" with permissions to view their children's records, read and comment on student-teacher transactions, review projects and subject material, and to a more limited degree, understand the "spirit" of their children's peer relationships, e.g., constructive/destructive, stimulating/boring, kind/unkind, etc.
-Ron
This thread is kind of old, but I'll add my experience in case anyone else dealing with this topic might browse through.
I deal with 11,12 & 13 year olds in the US. As had already been alluded to, their are privacy restrictions regarding how we identify students (first names only). Many school districts also prevent students from using email/IM tools. While there is substantial debate as to whether this is wise or not, it is a fact.
I am using Moodle. I have to input student accounts without last names. I am also customizing the display properties to disallow students from entering email/IM information, as well as personal info. I have to lock down user registration, and closely monitor forum participation.
All this while I know many of my students have web-based email without their parents knowledge. Many of them are accessing web content on their cell phones as well. Most of them have un-monitored access to the Internet at home, as well as Xanga/MySpace access as underage users.
I have to deal with all of this with the understanding that if one 'incident' happens, the administration will probably shut down the moodle courses instead of educating the public as to the benefits as opposed to the challenges of educating students in a connected world.
I deal with 11,12 & 13 year olds in the US. As had already been alluded to, their are privacy restrictions regarding how we identify students (first names only). Many school districts also prevent students from using email/IM tools. While there is substantial debate as to whether this is wise or not, it is a fact.
I am using Moodle. I have to input student accounts without last names. I am also customizing the display properties to disallow students from entering email/IM information, as well as personal info. I have to lock down user registration, and closely monitor forum participation.
All this while I know many of my students have web-based email without their parents knowledge. Many of them are accessing web content on their cell phones as well. Most of them have un-monitored access to the Internet at home, as well as Xanga/MySpace access as underage users.
I have to deal with all of this with the understanding that if one 'incident' happens, the administration will probably shut down the moodle courses instead of educating the public as to the benefits as opposed to the challenges of educating students in a connected world.
Well put. I understand your concern. I don't have an answer, but share your concern. We had to limit access to MySpace in response to network bandwidth issues. Not to mention that test scores in some classes were suffering. Computer lab monitoring software like SyncEyes (I think that is its name) have helped teachers monitor student off-task computer habits. Now do not get me wrong, teenages are very comfortable with multi-tasking with technology. However, the classroom teacher that is trying to monitor student mastery of hundreds of curricular objectives, needs to be able to at times control the pace of the class. For example, at home, it is ok if little Sally is IMing and blogging, and listening to new band from Seattle, and uploading images from her digital camera, while looking at the latest posts on FaceBook, MySpace, Xanga and holdling a three-way conversation on her flip phone while texting her boyfriend. This is what my daughter was doing this past Thursday night before leaving to go to work at her part-time job at a local resturant.
Most parents do not understand, and do not have a clue. So, when they hear on the nightly news that a kid somewhere was abducted because they were in a chatroom...all heck breaks loose. The only way parents and the community can be educated is through mass-media. That is their connection to technology. They are (me included) are stuck in the analog-TV, six-o'clock sound-byte, ratings-hungery media.
They all need to read the book - The World is Flat. Because while they have been worrying about whatever the news media has been talking about, our economy has been changed for ever. This is a good topic! More later...g2g
Our school receives prank bomb-threats from student cellphones which result in total interruption of the school day. These interruption can impact student performance. They happen several times a year. Still students are allowed to have cell phones in their book bags and their pockets. But let one parent complain about her darling being exposed to the evil people on the web and my school would run not walk to pull the plug on our Moodle site. I would like to see the Moodle community create some sort of parent handbook (this may already be around somewhere. I use last names in my Moodle site with my students.
I have one question: Does your school provide email addresses for students? We have outsources our email. I use only the student's school email addresses for our Moodle forums.
Most parents do not understand, and do not have a clue. So, when they hear on the nightly news that a kid somewhere was abducted because they were in a chatroom...all heck breaks loose. The only way parents and the community can be educated is through mass-media. That is their connection to technology. They are (me included) are stuck in the analog-TV, six-o'clock sound-byte, ratings-hungery media.
They all need to read the book - The World is Flat. Because while they have been worrying about whatever the news media has been talking about, our economy has been changed for ever. This is a good topic! More later...g2g
Our school receives prank bomb-threats from student cellphones which result in total interruption of the school day. These interruption can impact student performance. They happen several times a year. Still students are allowed to have cell phones in their book bags and their pockets. But let one parent complain about her darling being exposed to the evil people on the web and my school would run not walk to pull the plug on our Moodle site. I would like to see the Moodle community create some sort of parent handbook (this may already be around somewhere. I use last names in my Moodle site with my students.
I have one question: Does your school provide email addresses for students? We have outsources our email. I use only the student's school email addresses for our Moodle forums.
Good to read your experiences. Your observations are similar to many technologist I've been in contact with.
To answer your question, no we don't provide email addresses to students. We could through our OSX network. One of our school's also has outsourced email to gaggle.net as a solution. However the time and effort to support are troubling. I've talked to a couple of administrators who have experience with gaggle.net, and they detail student's ability to negate any type of content filtering. Plus it's my understanding it asks teachers to 'monitor' student email. Thats not going to happen in terms of time.
I enter in 'dummy' email addresses when needed. I have not broached using forms yet and if email is needed, will have to look elsewhere.
As I mentioned, most of our students have web based email accounts. Since most of them are under 13, many of them are doing it on their own.
In the past I'd say something if they were using email in school, but I've pretty much stopped doing that. Kind of a 'don't ask, don't tell' policy. That might not seem to responsible, but I'm trying to measure the benefits of allowing kids to use email, as opposed to saying you can't at school- knowing that they'll just go home and use it there.
As a related note, my school did a 'parent night' kind of meeting in which we presented the Xanga, MySpace type content. We did it in responsible manner- trying to provide the pros/cons of such sites. Our ultimate message was simply to get parents to be aware and in touch with their kids. Out of 800 students in our school, we had 3 parents show up.
However we've also had parents demanding we take action when students cyber-bully each other on MySpace, outside of school.
To answer your question, no we don't provide email addresses to students. We could through our OSX network. One of our school's also has outsourced email to gaggle.net as a solution. However the time and effort to support are troubling. I've talked to a couple of administrators who have experience with gaggle.net, and they detail student's ability to negate any type of content filtering. Plus it's my understanding it asks teachers to 'monitor' student email. Thats not going to happen in terms of time.
I enter in 'dummy' email addresses when needed. I have not broached using forms yet and if email is needed, will have to look elsewhere.
As I mentioned, most of our students have web based email accounts. Since most of them are under 13, many of them are doing it on their own.
In the past I'd say something if they were using email in school, but I've pretty much stopped doing that. Kind of a 'don't ask, don't tell' policy. That might not seem to responsible, but I'm trying to measure the benefits of allowing kids to use email, as opposed to saying you can't at school- knowing that they'll just go home and use it there.
As a related note, my school did a 'parent night' kind of meeting in which we presented the Xanga, MySpace type content. We did it in responsible manner- trying to provide the pros/cons of such sites. Our ultimate message was simply to get parents to be aware and in touch with their kids. Out of 800 students in our school, we had 3 parents show up.
However we've also had parents demanding we take action when students cyber-bully each other on MySpace, outside of school.
I have to share this in response to the cyber-bullying. When my students first started using Moodle, I allowed them to use its messaging feature. I was able to print out their messages to each other and all of a sudden it was not fun to send messages about how boring using Moodle was...I was very clear with my instructions for them to not write anything in Moodle that they would not wear on their t-shirt or allow the entire message to be displaced in 2 feet tall letters on a long banner on the court of the next home basketball game... They did not understand it until I passed around a printed version all their messages from that class, before they left that day and warned them that they signed a contract which if violated would result in disciplinary action--blah blah blah. They do not care about rules. Then next day, two of the students got off task and send messages to each other with "IM" short-hand, thinking that it would not be understood. My punishment was swift and immediate. Those two students are not allowed to use computers in my classroom. Instead of using computers in my classroom, they have to complete the assignment using alternate activities. I got their attention. As I improve my Moodle curriculum planning skills, and figure out what my students can complete in a given period of time, the less issues I have with inappropriate behavior.
However, forums are something that they do not understand. They think that discussion forums are like instant messaging and use slang and never for ideas with sentences and punctuation is "like hair on a snake."
Parents are so disconnected with their kids and their use of computers. If your school would have tried to ban sports, or cancel marching band, your meeting would probably generated a much different "show-up" statistic. I applaud your schools attempt to educate parents on the blogging issue. It is not important until it happens to them....
However, forums are something that they do not understand. They think that discussion forums are like instant messaging and use slang and never for ideas with sentences and punctuation is "like hair on a snake."
Parents are so disconnected with their kids and their use of computers. If your school would have tried to ban sports, or cancel marching band, your meeting would probably generated a much different "show-up" statistic. I applaud your schools attempt to educate parents on the blogging issue. It is not important until it happens to them....
I'm working in a primary aged school so our experiences may not be directly comparable, but I'm pleased to say that, thus far at least, we've had none of these problems. Our model has been to take the best aspects of classroom practice and translate these over to Moodle, which applies to behaviour and acceptable use to, so we start them off with a clear message of 'you behave in the virtual classroom just as you would in the real one'. Here's the AUP:
So the discussion forums are the analogue of classroom discussions - the place to ask for help, share ideas etc, so that others can benefit, and whilst the language shouldn't be as in formal written work, neither should it be slang or txt. The messages are the equivalent of private conversations from which everyone else is excluded - something which should happen rarely in lessons, but on occasion there may be good reasons for it.
"
The key idea is that you behave in this Virtual Environment just as you would in a normal maths lesson. This means:
- You concentrate on the work! So our focus is on this to help us to learn, although we can have some fun occasionally too;
- You treat everyone with respect: you really mustn't write anything which might upset anyone else, or that you wouldn't mind seeing written about you yourself;
- You join in, so post entries to the glossary, reply to other people's questions etc.;
- You ask for help if you're not sure about something, or are challenged - the homework discussion is a good place for this;
- You respect others' privacy, so don't use someone else's username, or let other people know your password; and
- You look after shared resources, so try not to break anything!
Whilst
we should be the only people able to use this, I don't want to take any
chances, so don't include your phone number, address or anyone else's
in anything you write here - the same applies to any other website you
visit!
Above all though, enjoy using all this and make the most of it!"
Above all though, enjoy using all this and make the most of it!"
So the discussion forums are the analogue of classroom discussions - the place to ask for help, share ideas etc, so that others can benefit, and whilst the language shouldn't be as in formal written work, neither should it be slang or txt. The messages are the equivalent of private conversations from which everyone else is excluded - something which should happen rarely in lessons, but on occasion there may be good reasons for it.
We are experiencing almost the opposite problem to this at the moment. We have set up a Moodle course for potential students. It contains a few interactive exercises for each subjest that we offer, so that potential students can have a look through and see what subjects are all about, especially subjects that they may not have studied in school. We have put a discussion board in there so that they can ask question and perhaps (this may be optimistic) get to know some other people who are starting college at the same time as them. We have given out usernames and passwords to all of our local schools. The problem occurs when we put a link to the course on our website. People have to register and get a username sent to them, but management are concerned that people may ask for usernames who are not legitimate students, and get into Moodle and start conversations with our own students. I'm really against stifling such a discussion board but am coming under pressure to remove it "just in case". What does anyone think about this??
Hmmm, this is an interesting one.
You could house the discussion inside a course in moodle, and use an enrollment key for the course. Students who request access will have to be enrolled (I know, a few more minutes at the keyboard mindlessly clicking for some poor Moodle admin like myself). You can still have a link to the course from the web page, but "students" that are not enrolled will be asked for an enrollment key, even if they can log in to your moodle site, so they won't be able to get to the forum. Students who are enrolled will be asked to log in to moodle, but then taken straight to the course page.
You could house the discussion inside a course in moodle, and use an enrollment key for the course. Students who request access will have to be enrolled (I know, a few more minutes at the keyboard mindlessly clicking for some poor Moodle admin like myself). You can still have a link to the course from the web page, but "students" that are not enrolled will be asked for an enrollment key, even if they can log in to your moodle site, so they won't be able to get to the forum. Students who are enrolled will be asked to log in to moodle, but then taken straight to the course page.