The Vision of Forest Green School
Our students use technology to learn. Technology is essential to facilitate the creative problem solving, information fluency, critical thinking skills, and collaboration that we see in today’s world. While we want our students to be active contributors in our connected world, we also want them to be safe, legal, and responsible.
Over the past year, we have looked at ways of how we can create digital portfolios of student work that will not only show the growth of each child throughout their time at Forest Green, but can also help them to develop their passions and strengths. Through our thorough research, we have developed our new Forest Green School website, which is a WordPress Multiple User site. This gives us the opportunity to not only communicate with our school community, but also have teachers and students create their own e-portfolios. Since our school hosts these websites, we are able to ensure they are only viewable by the groups that we choose. To start the project, student portfolios would only be accessible to Parkland School Division staff and Forest Green School students. Students and teachers will also have the option to make any pages or post “private”, only viewable to those they choose. Although there would eventually be an opportunity to open these sites globally, we want to ensure that we are thoughtful of every step in the process. Student portfolios would not be opened up without parental consent.
To best prepare our students for their future, we want to provide rich learning activities through this medium, as well as others. The more opportunities students have to share their learning, the more opportunities they have to be successful.
This acceptable use policy (AUP) supports our vision of technology use and upholds in our students a strong sense of digital citizenship and identity.
How We Plan to Use Technology
The integrated information technology program at Forest Green School develops the literacy skills our students need in order to contribute in a connected world. We use technology to facilitate creativity and innovation. We use technology to support communication and collaboration. We use technology to extend research and develop information fluency. We want our students to have a sound understanding of technology operations and concepts. We believe technology can be transformative. We will create a safe online environment for all of our students.
Our Hardware and Software
Our students can access the Internet via both wired and wireless connections throughout the school. SmartBoards within the school help to facilitate group viewing and discussions. Forest Green students have access to a standard suite of software to support their learning needs, which will include Google Applications for Education and a WordPress Multiple User Platform. Through this environment, students have the opportunity to collaborate with one another, and further their own knowledge in a safe and effective way.
Being a Digital Citizen
At Forest Green School, we use information and technology in safe, legal, and responsible ways. It is important that we educate our students on what this means before we start using technology. The conversation must continue throughout our work.
We embrace the following conditions or facets of being a digital citizen.
- Respect Yourself- I will select online names that are appropriate, I will consider the information and images that I post online.
- Protect Yourself- I will not publish my personal details, contact details or a schedule of my activities.
- Respect Others-I will not use technologies to bully or tease other people.
- Protect Others-I will protect others by reporting abuse and not forwarding inappropriate materials or communications.
- Respect Intellectual Property- I will suitably cite any and all use of websites, books, media, etc.
- Protect Intellectual Property- I will request to use the software and media that others produce.
For more information contact:
Forest Green School
Phone: 780-963-7366
Email: ForestGreen@psd70.ab.ca