Safe and Ethical use of ICT in Mathematics

Welcome to Parents, Teachers, Staff and Students,

For our upcoming Year 7 Maths task your children have been assigned groups to research and present the use of probability in the real world.

Australian Curriculum Standards

With this comes much need for extra involvement from students and parents to both stay on track, and promote the safe and ethical use of ICT.

Through researching online, your children must become familiar with the following:

 Browsing the web safely, choosing information from worthy sources, and using APA referencing to cite all information.

While collecting information, your child will be communicating with group members through the use of a Google Document, that has been created by the students in class.

From here your child will be shooting their video, with the final product being played to the class.

What to do as a Parent!

As a precaution it would be greatly advised to talk to your son/daughter about the following safety concerns in relation to cyberspace, due to their importance, and their relation to the current mathematics task:

Digital Footprint:

Through this research task, only a minimal digital footprint should be created on that of a Google Doc, to enable groups to collaboratively work on the task together. Depending on how the students approach this task, they may find themselves choosing to upload the video (at parent discrepancy), however, with this comes the issue of 'what is posted on the internet, stays on the internet'. Due to concerns about your child's' digital footprint, I would advise the following strategies for parents:

Cyber Security: Virus/Adware/Malware Protection:

Due to the group nature of this assignment, potential virus/malware/adware risks could take place through hyperlinks and unreliable sources being posted by the students into their google document. Furthermore, researching information could results in students finding unreliable sources on the web. Due to these potentials, I recommend the following strategies and implementations for parents:

Online Ethics:

Like anything in life, ethics are something to be adhered to. Online, just like a book or movie, copyright laws not only exist, but must be followed. The relation to ethics in regards to this assignment consists of students being respectful to feelings, property, and privacy; as well as using APA referencing to cite all sources used throughout their assignment. Due to the need to implement online ethics for students throughout this assignment, and their futures, I suggest the following techniques and protocols for parents:





















Do the Right Thing: Ethics Tip Sheet

Safe Passwords:

Through the use of a Google Document, students must login to their account to work on this assignment. This raises concerns for the safety of passwords, in regards to keeping them private, and making them as secure as possible. The following strategies have been listed to guide parents through the implementation of safe passwords:

Cyber Bullying:

As groups will be working on a Google Document, it is important to make sure that your child is aware of cyber bullying, and that it is crucial to report any occurrences to both you as their parent, and myself as their teacher. Due to students working collaboratively on the google document, a potential for cyber-bullying could arise. For this reason, and the safety of all of my students, I strongly suggest the following tasks to be completed by parents:


























More details on ESafety and how you can support your child in using cyberspace can be found here:
ESafety
and here:
Parent Guide to Online Safety

 Kind regards,

and PLEASE:
Protect Yourself Online!

Mr Allen Blazey

For more information on Ethical Protocols and Practices in ICT, please visit my other Blog here!

References