FERPA

Just for the record, I don't procrastinate.  I just work on other things first.

So FERPA.  I read some other people's posts about the article we were supposed to read, and I would have to say that I agree with all of it.  Students definitely need rules and whatnot for posting on the Internet because they have no idea what is acceptable and what is not acceptable in an online that is an extension of the classroom, but looks strikingly similar to facebook.

I think a few trial runs might be beneficial before any serious discussion or collaboration could happen online.  Maybe they could even do some "dress rehersals" in the "real world" on paper or in a class discussion before moving it online.  The article mentioned that peer graded work can be posted online, so perhaps the students could become comfortable discussing their ideas in class as a class and learn how to evaluate one another's work in the real world.  Then they could simply continue the discussions and peer evaluations online once they learn the proper etiquette.

Something with googledocs could be interesting.  Maybe have students post their essays to a google account for the class and have people peer review them.  I don't know.  Just an idea.  Or may they could all contribute to a study guide (I'm not gonna lie, I set up googledocs accounts when I was an undergrad, sent the information to everyone in my class, and had everyone work on the study guides together.  Worked beautifully - with college kids anyways).

Oh, and getting the parents' permission is always a plus (but apparently not required by law).

Response to Snow Days

I personally don't have a problem with schools turning snow days into 'e-days' - if all of the students have access to the internet.  I know for a fact that not all of my students have access to the internet at home, so I wouldn't feel comfortable giving them an e-assignment that could be turned in at a later date.

Of course students will complain that e-days aren't fair and yadda yadda yadda, but I don't see anything unfair about them.  According to the school district's calendar, the students are supposed to be in school on that day.  Because of snow, the district has decided to switch the school setting from the physical classroom to the internet.  Still school, just a different setting.

I think this would also be a great opportunity to teach teachers how to use new technologies like blogs and wikis.  I think some teachers don't use them because they can get along just fine without them.  But if they are given a real problem that can be solved with new technologies, then maybe they would be more open to trying them.