Dear Parents/Guardians: p. 1
Students on the Topaz Team in Mrs. Hartman's Connections class will be participating in a special Web 2.0 tool this year. This free tool is Google Apps for Education. Google Apps for Education streamlines and organizes student work. All student documents and presentations will be stored online and will be accessible from home, school, and anywhere there is an Internet connection. This means students can also work on assignments at the library and while traveling, if they choose. Students can access Mrs. Hartman's Google Apps for Education site at:
http://welcome.hartmanstudents.com
At the site, they will have access to the class calendar, collaborative tools, all of their Google documents and presentations, as well as current events pertinent to our Connections classes. They will be assigned a Gmail account and password to log in to the site. However, this gmail address and password are only used to sign in and to share Google documents. The students WILL NOT have access to email or IM. I encourage you to record this information in a safe place. The email and password are on page 4 of this document. Students will also have extensive training on how to use Google Apps for Education. We hope they will share what they learn with you.
Google Apps for Education is just one of the Web 2.0 tools we will be using this year in Mrs. Hartman's Connections classes. In an effort to increase our students' ability to work collaboratively on writing and research projects, we will be using a variety of free Web 2.0 applications. Here is a quick glossary for those who may not be familiar with all of the terms used throughout this document.
- The term Web 2.0 refers to the trend in World Wide Web technology and web design that aims to enhance creativity, information sharing, and most notably, collaboration among users. (Wikipedia)
- A wiki is a website that may be edited collaboratively, anytime, anywhere. Wikipedia is an example of an encyclopedia built through a wiki. It provides students and educators the opportunity to collaborate and share information on certain subjects. Students will use a wiki provider named Wikispaces to work collaboratively on a group project. Wikispaces is a safe, teacher-controlled environment, where only imvited participants can edit the information, and no personal information is shared with readers of the page.
- A blog is a shortened form of the word "web log" where people can publish their own content in written, audio (podcasts), video, or other multimedia formats. Blogs can be publicly accessible, accessible to only certain groups of people, or completely private. Most blogs operate as personal journals, on which readers may add comments.
- Google is a search engine and much more; it offers a multitude of services such as Documents, Spreadsheets, and Presentations which anable students to edit and collaborate on documents, spreadsheets, and Powerpoint-like presentations online. Additional Google services include Google Earth, Sketchup, and Blogger.
- Multimedia creation sites allow users to upload video, audio, images, or text in order to remix it into a new creation. Some examples of these sites are Voicethread, Scrapblog, Animoto, Jumpcut, YouTube, and CCMixter.
- Moodle is a course management system that anables students to access course content and discussion forums at any time that is convenient for them. Some of our teachers will be using Moodle this year to run their classes. Moodle is hosted by us and does not need an email account for the student to be registered.
The main reason we are writing this letter is to ask permission to create an online account for your child, which consists of an email address and a password. The account will be used to access the services described in this letter. Federal law requires that students under the age of 13 have parental permission to submit any information of this type to a website.
We encourage you to particiapte with your child in his/her online activities. Our students create amazing work when they collaborate with one another. However, as with any other online pursuit, your
involvement in their work is beneficial to their development as an
informed user of the Internet. In an effort to be as clear as possible, we have outlined our
policies below for using online applications, such as wikis, blogs, and other
online applications with students. Once they are members of the sites they can create and participate in online classroom activities. Please note, in the case of Wikispaces, they will be able to participate in any public Wikispace; their access will not be limited to their teacher’s pages.
Agreement and Purposes
We will be using Web 2.0 applications for the purposes of:
Responding to and commenting on curriculum topics as we study them
Creating written projects and commenting on each others' work
Encouraging process writing
Practicing persuasive writing
Writing creatively
Practicing taking varied points of view on a topic
Sharing classroom events with families
Sharing special projects with local, national and global audiences
Discussing current events
Making classroom suggestions
Creating dynamic and vibrant research
Working with multimedia in a collaborative environment
Terms and Conditions
All students and participants in these projects must agree to the terms and conditions of this agreement.
The teachers will make every reasonable effort to monitor student conduct related to class content in order to maintain a positive learning community. All participants will respect the teachers' time and professionalism by supporting the same positive approach.
No student, or other participant, may include any information or images on the site that could compromise the safety of him/herself or other class members. Participants should avoid specific comments about our location or schedules, if they would be visible to outsiders.
All participants will be respectful in their postings and comments. No trash-talk, inappropriate language, personal insults, profanity, spam, racist, sexist or discriminatory remarks, or threatening comments will be tolerated.
No student or other participant may post, comment, or change settings on the sites in violation of these terms and conditions.
Usernames may not contain any identifying information, including first or last names, but instead may be created at random by the teacher.
All participants must protect their log-in and password information, as well as class passwords (if any) . If participants suspect that a password has been compromised, they must notify the teacher immediately.
No participant may share his/her log-in information or protected information about the site with anyone who is not a participant. This includes adding trackbacks or other means by which outsiders can access the site without permission.
Any participant who is aware of violations of this agreement by others must report these violations to the teacher immediately both verbally and in writing (email or note).
All use of these services must be in accordance with the Sparta Board of Education's Acceptable Use Policy, including entries made from computers outside of school.
Uncited use of copyrighted material in any student work will be deemed as plagiarism and disciplined accordingly.
No posting or comment may facilitate or promote illegal activity, either overtly or by implication.
Consequences
Any violation of the above terms and conditions shall make the violator subject to both immediate termination from one or all of these services and/or additional disciplianry action. At the teacher’s discretion, a warning may be given in the case of minor infractions.
Signatures
I agree to the terms and conditions in this document, and permit my child to participate in these services.
________________________________
Student signature Date
________________________________ _____________________________________________
Parent/Guardian signature Date Parent/Guardian email (please print)
Page 4 - Please keep this page for your records and return p. 3 with signatures
Student First and Last Name:_____________________________________________________
Gmail address:________________________________________________________________
Password:____________________________________________________________________
website address: http://welcome.hartmanstudents.com
Our class blog (updated weekly by students): http://hartmanhoopla.blogspot.com
We welcome your comments and questions on our class blog!
Please contact me at erica.hartman@sparta.org with any questions.