Although there are many sites with varying opinions on what and how to ensure safety for students online, here are the rules that students adhere to and I enforce.
Use a pseudonym and don’t give away any identifying details; I will assign the name each student will use for their responses.
Do not link to your personal blog or website (including: MySpace, Facebook, Flickr, Sonico, Tagged, Vox, Windows Live Spaces, or other web site); this is an academic assignment on a site for academic discourse. Therefore a level of professionalism will be maintained.
Make sure the tone of discourse is civil. If you wish to share your opinion or disagree, there are ways to do this that invite intelligent debate. In that same vein, remember you are representing your school when you post here, and you may not criticize other groups, schools, or organizations in the name of your school.
Be sure to check your posts for grammar, mechanics, usage, and spelling. It might be helpful to type it in a word processing program first. Remember, too, that this is writing for school. If you wouldn’t turn it in to your strictest teacher, don’t post it here. (This means: NO TEXT MESSAGE formats of writing.)
Only the pseudonyms will be used to refer to other individuals, and no one may write about another individual online with or without their permission. This is a matter of respect for people’s right to privacy on the web; you do not have the right to break the privacy of others by using information about them in your post(s).
Share your sources. If you used other web sites or books to defend an argument, link to them so your readers can check them out, too.
Make sure the post is relevant to education. Post your academic writing, important club events, reporting on school, etc., but don’t share your weekend plans or goofy online quiz results. Non-academic responses will be removed from the site.
Do NOT attach pictures of yourself or others to your posts, this also includes uploading images as avatars. All avatars must by cartoon/anime style images that have no direct correlation to the student.
ALL knowledge and images taken from another source must be cited. Information and images “borrowed” without giving credit to the origin constitutes stealing and WILL result in discipline action.
