Happy Thursday Digital Literacy families! This week in class, your students are learning about Digital Citizenship, and I wanted to share some information that I think is helpful when you are working with your student to stay safe, respectful and responsible online. This past summer, I spent a lot of time reflecting on the work that we did as a school and community with Virtual Learning. I have been working on a certification to support my work as a teacher of technology called the ISTE Certification . One of the issues that gave me pause is surrounding Digital Citizenship and the resources we are using online. As we watch out students navigate an online world, it is often important to think about privacy and the type of information that websites, including educational websites, are gathering about its users. As part of my class, I did research on three different common educational websites that we use, and the information that the websites collect. I wanted to share my research with everyone this week, because it ties in to what we are learning in class, and it may spark you to explore some new resources!
Interland: Interland, according to its creators "is an adventure-packed online game that makes learning about digital safety and citizenship interactive and fun. Here, kids will help their fellow Internauts combat badly behaved hackers, phishers, oversharers, and bullies by practicing the skills they need to be good digital citizens." It is a game that has been played in many classrooms, including Digital Literacy! Interland's privacy document includes a great tutorial about Cookies (A cookie is a small piece of text sent to your browser by a website you visit) if you are interested in learning more. From their tutorial on how they are collecting data, I delved into what is actually being collected when you log on. As students play, there is less information collected than on other sites I found. Common Sense Media, which is an excellent resource for parents looking to find more information about privacy rating for websites, has not yet rated Interland, but the parent users have given it a 5 star rating based on what they know about the Cookies from the site. Google's privacy document on Interland says that they collect "information to help students maintain their levels in the game, age and demographic information, and information that might help identify additional educational opportunities for students interested in playing Interland." The last part of their privacy policy gave me pause, though one can expect that a free game with such good content would be used for marketing other apps and games by collecting information. My vote: Interland is a safe game, and collects a minimum amount of personal data from your child.
Exploratorium: Exploratorium is an actual museum in California, but it just happens to have a website that goes into all sorts of interesting science-related topics, and is a great resource for kids who want to explore some experiments on their own. Exploratorium is rated 4 Star for privacy by Common Sense Media, and I did a bit of exploring on my own to make sense of the information they are collecting. In their privacy policy, this site says that it "is collecting data on what pages are used, where you explore, and how long you stay on certain topics." For me, this is information that I can understand that an organization would want. What students are most interested in and where they are spending the most time helps form what new content will be updated. As a teacher and a parent, this is helpful to know. In this sites privacy policy it collects more personal information such as email addresses, mailing addresses, age, demographics, and other identifiers ONLY if your student wants to access parts of the site that require you to put in your information. As a choice-based submission, this site's privacy policy is great for kids. Talk with your student about adding information online about themselves, and consider coming up with a family policy about when they should ask before adding addresses, age, birthday or other identifying information. Check out this site, however! There are great activities for students of all ages, and things you can explore as a family.
So I leave you today with these things to think about as your students spends time online. I know that I rarely actually read the long, fine print in Privacy policies, but hopefully this information that I shared with you today might make you curious enough to take a peek. The following questions I borrowed from Common Sense Media as a way of evaluating the websites that your students are looking at:
1. Does it collect person information, and is that information then protected with a password?
2. Does the site tell you when it is collecting this information?
3. Does that data stay with the website, or can it be shared with marketing (third-party)? 4. Does it collect your location?
5. Is the website collecting information from children under 13?
While you may not always think about your privacy, it doesn't hurt to check out what is happening! As always, shoot me an email with any questions that you may have about this information, and hopefully this post will start a great conversation about all the Digital Citizenship topics we have been talking about in class too!
