MPS EdTech

From Jun Kim -

We'd like to bring your attention to Cyber Security Awareness Month, celebrated in October, which aims to raise awareness about the significance of online safety. As part of this initiative, we want to inform you about some upcoming changes and actions that may affect your students at Moore.

District-Wide Password Change:

• Junior High and High School students will be undergoing a district-wide password change for their online accounts.
• Staff (All) – MORE TO FOLLOW
• Password reset and multi-factor authentication verification
• Self-service password reset

Digital Citizenship Week first began back in 2010 to help children make ethical and responsible decisions in online spaces and when using their digital devices.

Digital Citizenship Week teaches children how to act safely and ethically online and on their devices. The way kids conduct themselves online has an impact on their well-being, so it’s important to guide and educate them on how to act responsibly in digital spaces.

Key aspects of Digital Citizenship Week include:

• Digital Literacy: Promoting the development of digital literacy skills, such as online research, critical thinking, and media literacy.
• Online Safety: Highlighting the significance of online safety, including practices to protect personal information, recognize and prevent cyberbullying, and respond to online threats.
• Privacy: Educating participants about online privacy issues and the importance of safeguarding personal data.
• Respect and Responsibility: Emphasizing the values of respect, empathy, and responsibility when interacting with others online.
• Digital Footprints: Understanding the concept of digital footprints and the long-term consequences of online actions.
• Social Media Etiquette: Encouraging responsible and ethical use of social media and other online platforms.

Teaching digital citizenship is crucial in today's interconnected world. Here are some activities you can use to teach these skills:

Write one of the key aspects(listed above) of digital citizenship on the board. Just based on prior knowledge, ask students to write a definition for the term. Then ask them to quickly share, discuss, combine and revise their definition with a partner. From there, you can either combine pairs into foursomes to repeat the process or jump straight to a whole class discussion where students share and discuss their definitions as you construct a consensus definition on the board.

You can start here or make this an extension activity for the Think-Pair-Share conversations above. Have students create a flyer/poster or t-shirt with a call-to-action to stand up against cyberbullying. You can use applications like Canva or Google Drawings, or unplug and create paper-based posters.

Explain that being a good digital citizen is lifelong commitment. For each of the key aspects of digital citizenship listed above, write a statement explaining how you will be a better digital citizen. Post your statements somewhere in your room and ask students to help you be accountable. Examples:

• Digital Literacy - Whenever I use images, videos, or text that I did not create, I will cite where I got it from.
• Online Safety - When I see an instance of cyber bullying, I will report it to the appropriate platform administrators.
• Respect and Responsibility - Even when I see something I don't like or disagree with, I will interact with others in a respectful manner and block or disengage those who do not behave the same.

For a bellringer activity, discuss your statements and have students write their own.

Create a page in your Canvas course dedicated to Digital Citizenship. Let students decide what should be included and have them create the resources. Consider having some students research and add tutorials showing how to block users and report cyberbullying on popular social media sites. Another group can add information about password strength and management. See if you can create a guide that covers the key aspects of digital citizenship listed above and also include additional ideas from students.

Take five minutes to discuss the characteristics of a strong password and have students check their password strength. Strong passwords are:

• at least 12 characters - the longer the better.
• a combination of uppercase letters, lowercase letters, numbers, and symbols.
  
• not a word that can be found in a dictionary or the name of a person, character, product, or organization.
  
• significantly different from your previous passwords.
• easy to remember but difficult for others to guess.

Visit https://security.org to check your password strength.

Instruct students to write short third-person biographies using only information discovered through a Google search of their name, city of residence, and school. Consider joining in and doing one yourself! Afterward, lead a class discussion to explore surprising, unsettling, or inaccurate details uncovered during the search and their implications for practicing responsible digital citizenship. Encourage students to clean up their social media accounts and any other sites that may undermine others’ perceptions of their character, integrity, and maturity.

Growing up has always had its challenges. But for kids today, social media and tech can amplify the typical stressors of adolescence. Common Sense's free lessons and resources are a positive and accessible way to help.

2023 Digital Citizenship Week calendars: click on the images below for grade level activities.

Check out these lessons about safety, kindness, responsibility, and balance on the internet.

Lightspeed Parent Portal gives parents/guardians visibility and control over their child’s internet usage on school-issued devices (and/or using school accounts) at home and after-school hours.

All MPS parents will be automatically enrolled in the

Lightspeed Parent Portal.

First report going out Oct. 1.

• Parents/Guardians are emailed a Weekly Student Online Activity Report keeping them informed with a summary of their child’s web activity and key stats for the week.

• Parents/Guardians can log into their Parent Portal account to view real-time web activity, so they can easily stay informed and take action.

• Parents/Guardians can allow, restrict, or block after-school access to YouTube, social media, and social networking websites on the students' school-issued device.

• Parents/Guardians can control screen time by temporarily pausing web browsing on a school-issued device while student is at-home or outside-of-school hours for either 1 hour, 3 hours, or until the next morning.

As you visit with parents/guardians during your P/T conferences, please encourage them to use the Canvas Parent app and the Infinite Campus Parent Portal app to stay up to date with school communications and view students' courses, lessons, and grades.

Below you will find a downloadable pdf with information about both apps that you can print out and send home with your parents during your conferences.

Microsoft has pushed a new app to all desktop computers. Unfortunately, it does not work with school accounts. There is no way to hide or remove this app, so we are forced to ignore it until they get it working with school accounts. No timetable on when that will be, if ever.

When you open it up, this is what you see (image on left).

When you click "See other ways to back up", you will see the verbiage that indicates it does not work with school or work accounts.

Therefore, the supported backup method for MPS continues to be OneDrive.

Some of you may now have a Newline board in your classroom, and may possibly be seeking some training materials for yourselves or for your building. Well, we’ve heard your requests and are working hard to put together some supportive materials for you.

Please checkout our MPS Teacher Passport Training Course, selecting the Device Support section, and choosing the Newline Boards option to see what we have so far (you will need to be signed into Canvas to open this link).

If you haven’t signed up for the MPS Teacher Passport yet, click the image below to enroll!

Coming Soon….to our MPS Teacher Passport Training Course > Device Support > Newline Boards

• MPS Newline Q Series Video Demonstration
• MPS Newline Q Series How-to Guide

If you don't have the MPS Teacher Passport course on your Canvas dashboard, click the image below to enroll. You'll find tutorials and resources on all things MPS EdTech!

Contact us at edtech@mooreschools.com if you have questions or need anything!