Hey!

Number 2 Pencil posts about a 13 year old boy who sent the message "Hey!" to all the computers at his school. He got a 3-day suspension for it! That tells me a few things: first, that school must not have too many serious behavior problems, or they wouldn't be giving out 3-day suspensions for harmless pranks. Second, they didn't put in much time thinking about appropriate use as a staff and with their students.

We did an activity earlier this week, before I gave out the eChalk email addresses. We spent the entire period reading through our Acceptable Use Policy and discussing what it meant in real life. Then, each child rewrote it in his or her own words. This provided me with the opportunity to scare them a little, and no one can say they weren't warned if they break the rules.

The other thing I'm learning is to be a little flexible about the computer use... the kids are so happy to have email addresses, of course they spend every free second during class emailing each other, then checking to see if their messages arrived. I could crack down on it, or I could recognize how absolutely NORMAL it is, and just try to teach them to do it AFTER completing their work. I mean, WE check our email during free moments at work (well, ok, maybe we teachers don't, but most adults do)....