 Yeah, sorry. Hey, Paris, thanks so much for joining us today on this recorded Zoom session. I'm more so glad that you were able to join us to hear a little bit more about digital citizenship and confidentiality. All right, so I'm joined today by JC Palmer and she is a tech integrationist here. JC, you want to say a few words? Yes. Hello. Thanks, Steph, for inviting me and hello, Paris. It's fun to be back with all of you with another tech topic. So I look forward to sharing some digital citizenship ideas today. And I moved our little control panel bar so that you could see our emails on here. I think you all know me, Steph Lundgren. We've been together lots of times and I love the days when I get to work with Paris. And I think, you know, I'm going to hit the next slide and JC is going to start talking about digital citizenship, but I think that's a just a name in itself that sometimes leads to some confusion. So what does that mean? Yes, thank you. And thanks for pointing that out that digital citizenship is really just about who we are online or in any of the platforms, social media, it may be or it might be some of the work that we help our students do online and just how we can be good citizens in the digital world as well. So digital footprint is what is another way to think of it and that just like when we step outside in this cold weather and we're walking through the snow and we're going to inevitably leave a footprint as we go through the snow, it's kind of like when what we're doing online, it's all leaving a footprint. So it's all that information that's online, whether we intend to leave a footprint or not. And there's a lot of information that gets stored in the interwebs about our activity online. And so knowing how to carefully and appropriately navigate the digital world, I think is our first step, especially when we're working with young people and helping them navigate the digital world. So yeah, I've made a personal decision that everything I post will be positive. Just because of that digital footprint, you can't ever get rid of it. Somebody could screenshot it, somebody, whatever. So the minute that I'm tempted to vent on Facebook or somewhere like that, I stop myself and say what I'm about to put out there is not more beautiful than the silence. So it's not going there. That's great. Yeah. And before we go on, that kind of reminds me of an analogy I heard about how when we help students learn to drive or like our kids are learning to drive, we first start with like a school permit or a learner's permit and we help them practice some of the skills before we just give them a car and say, here, go have fun. And so that's kind of like what we need to be thinking about when we have these computers or phones or any of the internet sites and all the tech that is inevitably in a great part of our life nowadays. It's like we want to help guide and help them without quote, quote, learner's permit and help them practice some good practices online so that when they are able to be turned loose and freely navigating sites or making decisions on what to do online, they're prepared to make good choices just like they'd be a good driver, just hope and intent. Yeah. And just to model it too, right? You know, like we're going to help them learn that through the things that they do at school, but also we don't want them turning around and seeing the things we do at night or say at night and have it be a real contradiction, right? That's a great point. Yes. Yes. So let's get into thinking about what our story does tell about us. So if we were to think about all of our own personal social media accounts or the emails we've sent or the podcast we've listened to or the YouTube videos we've watched or, you know, anything that we're doing in the digital world is part of our digital footprint. And we'll talk about today some of the some dos and don'ts when it comes to using all of these different online opportunities. But as we get into it, just take a minute to consider what our own individual story might look like if somebody revealed all that and what we might want it to look like or how we could take action to make it the best possible. So, okay, so our first tip. So do remember that employers search for you. So whether we are just newly hired or whether we've been in the role for a long time, it's common practice for those employers to go to Google and search their employees, whether in a job application situation or just from time to time to keep kind of keep tabs on behaviors and whatnot. So it's just maybe a good reminder that we wouldn't want to share anything that we, you know, we wouldn't want to land in the hands of an employer, for instance. And I think, go ahead. Well, I just think in the education world, it's even a step different. We are held to a different standard of than the standard employee, because we work with kids and because families see that. And so it's even more sensitive for I'm just thinking about pictures in different situations, the items in our pictures, whether it be alcohol or something like that, that we have to be really careful about. Yeah, that's a good point, not just employers, but parents or community members are searching us as educational employees. So yeah, yeah. Thanks. We do though, with all the talk of like worries of being online, we do want to in fact have an online presence. So we don't want to just go out and delete everything or close all of our accounts, like especially before an interview or when you're preparing to clean things up. In fact, I was on a call with a social media company or like a webinar and they were describing that they wouldn't hire someone who didn't have any trace of an online presence because it was kind of a red flag like, what got deleted or why aren't they online? Or, you know, who is this person if they didn't have anything? So it is important or fine acceptable grade to have some type of digital footprint with a history of things on there. So not to encourage everybody to go close down accounts and whatnot. Well, JC, so my question is then what do you recommend for people like, can you change your privacy settings so that only your friends see your social media accounts and maybe the kids or we're moving in that direction? Yeah, that's a good point. And that's one of our upcoming tips too is like to take advantage of those privacy settings. And all right, sorry about that. We'll come back to that. That's a good thought. Sure. Yes. Okay. So we do want to act online as we would in person. So if we're not going to say mean words in cyber bully bully somebody in person, we don't or overshare say things you wouldn't typically reveal. We don't want to do that online either. So same with visiting places that you wouldn't in person, maybe you wouldn't do that online as well. And just being aware that even though it's behind a screen or behind a phone, it is still very representative of the character potentially of the person. So just keep in mind that we want to help our students and ourselves to remember who we are online should correlate with who we are in real life person too. Yeah. So I'm thinking about some scenarios for Paris like maybe you are friends with high school students that you that you work with and you see some of them make rude comments to each other online. Should you fire back at them right there and comment back anything or would you leave that to a discussion at school? I think I would leave it to a discussion at school or tell some teachers that I work with or the principal, maybe some things that you're seeing, maybe the guidance counselor. And even not just the kids online, but maybe parents online, maybe parents are commenting about school. This has been really hard for me before. I've seen a comment that a parent made about some of my colleagues once. It was so hard for me not to say anything back to defend my colleagues, but I knew that the right thing to do was to live that alone, not add fuel to the fire and address it through our school systems if the administration wanted to have a meeting with that parent to address their concerns they could, but yeah. Yeah, the keyboard warriors, it sometimes seems easier to stand up or step in online, but really it can really escalate situations so really evaluate when it's appropriate. So that's good. And I think you kind of said this before too, but don't say anything that you wouldn't say to their face, right? Yeah. And use the kind of professional language that we would use to someone who's standing in our school with us. Yes, that's great. And that is along the lines of the same concept here, post high quality content. So profanity, nudity or content that represents somebody that you wouldn't want to be, avoid that. So that's not in a sense like our online digital life is, even when we do have certain privacy settings adjusted, it can become so public, so quickly. So just be really aware of how we and what we share online. So I think that's a good tip for all of us, but also, you know, these are tips for us to follow, but also for us to teach kids about. And wow, I think this is something that we really have to teach our kids in the, you know, Snapchat and that those pictures disappear. Somebody can screenshot that really quickly and have a record of it. So I think. Yeah, since I heard it, I'm sorry. I heard a lawyer describe in a phone call regarding like online management. And they said, like some kids just quite literally need told, do not take a nude picture and do not share a nude picture. And you know, you think it's kind of common sense in some regard to not be acting in that way. But we also need to realize like point blankly, we just need to teach some of those concepts. So. And don't be afraid to say it to them. Yes. They're much worse consequences than you saying that to a kid, right? I mean, kids can't take that stuff back. So, yep. Yeah. Remember, the deleting doesn't mean it's gone. It's kind of been said already, but we can't assume that once it's deleted, it's gone forever. In fact, there are companies out there now that are created to specifically find resources or items that have been deleted. So there's entire like IT software and company consulting companies that you can hire to do some of this like back in work to find out information that's previously been deleted. So, you know, hopefully we're never in situations of that nature, but just know that even delete doesn't mean it's gone or like other than screenshots, you know, there's taking pictures of something. And yeah, there's just enough situations that we hope that we wouldn't put anything out there that we don't want to ever be seen. Yep. Prevention is the key, right? Yes. Okay. Do use secure passwords. So this is actually a pretty significant part of keeping our digital footprint secure. So when at the very beginning, we talked about it might be our actions that intentionally create our digital footprint, or it could be the actions of others. And we just want to take all precautions or appropriate steps to keep our digital citizenship life in order. And that starts with secure passwords on all types of accounts. So if it's very simple, it would be easy to guess because it's got identifiable information in it like your name or maybe a straightforward birthday or something that, you know, if somebody was trying to hack you, would they guess it because they already know something about you? Maybe try to use a little bit more complex password. And I know that there's a lot of discussion now on two-step verification. So if any of those apps prompt you to set up two steps to sign in, I know a lot of banking accounts will require that now. And that's actually a great best practice just to keep your information secure so that people can't get into your whether it is, you know, banking apps or even just your school account or your email or your social media creating a system that is a very complex password. So that's like some capital letters, some lowercase letters, some numbers, some symbols, you know, really mix it up so that you can keep track. And another tip on using secure passwords, try not to use the same password on everything. Maybe a slight variation of it so that if somebody did get into your account, they wouldn't be able to get into every single account. Yeah, I, you know, there was a funny bulletin board I saw several years ago was that passwords are like underwear. Don't show them to anybody and change them often. I love it. I love it. That is a great analogy. Yeah, it's a cute little bulletin board. Cool. Okay, remember that off-campus speech can have school consequences. So this is for students too. So even if we were sharing something, especially obviously if it's illegal, we don't want to be doing or sharing any of that, but if you're, if we are saying something, even if we're not on the clock per se, if we're off-campus, if it's on the weekend, if it does create a substantial disruption to school per the lawyer's phone call, it can still have school consequences. So if there's like a member of a team or a teacher on the weekend or whatnot and they say something in it, you know, it's significantly disrupts the day of school that can still have punishments. So just because we are away from the building or not on the clock, we have to remember what we're doing online still matters. Yeah, so this is important for adults and the kids, right? I mean, like kids making threats to the school, I think we've seen situations like that where they see a threatening post to the school and that can have some consequences. So I just think, yeah, modeling this for kids and reiterating it, telling them don't just think, oh, they'll pick it up on their own. Just like you told them, we have to tell the kids this. Yes, yeah. Okay, remember the algorithms know you. So the artificial intelligence that's built into like social media, for example, is going to naturally show you more of what you click on and what you watch. So that is, it like remembers and learns. So just like or unlike a human person to remember everything about you and then show you like the next video that you would like, that would take me a lot of work, but the computer will like you watch one YouTube video, it's going to naturally like prompt you to watch another one of similar content because it knows you liked and watch that one, which is why like if one person pulls up their Facebook, they might see a lot of pictures of like cute dogs and cats and then another person pulls up Facebook and they don't see one single cat or dog on there. It's not because of it's because the one person love looking at cat and dog pictures. So it keeps showing than that. And you know, like my husband's his is full of tractors and cows. And so that's what his Facebook will feed him. So just remember that those algorithms do matter. And if you start seeing a lot of content that you don't like, or if you've gotten yourself in a situation where it's showing you things that are inappropriate, or you wouldn't want to continue to look at or see quit stopping on them, even like a three second pause when you're scrolling certain social medias is like indication that you show interest. So scroll past it quickly to, you know, change that algorithm. And this is what, yeah, what you search for on Google, right? Yeah. And that's why it's like, Oh, the computer's always listening to me, right? That because these ads pop up after you've been looking at stuff like that. So you really have to think about your device too. And if you have a school device, you know, you need to be careful sites you go to, what's get searched, because that can go be searched and they can look through your cash and things like that and see where you've been. And even being on this, like a school's Wi Fi network or any Wi Fi network at a coffee shop, just be careful because those sites that are visited are trackable from the IT world. So yeah. Okay, so on a positive note, though, remember that some academic sources are valuable positive footprints too. So we don't want to underestimate the powerfulness of some of those digital learning projects that we are helping our students do, like, for example, in high school. So a lot of things we're talking about have been social media. But when we are creating, say, a Google slideshow or a Canva flyer, or we're putting together a website for a class, or we are playing, creating like a digital paper online, those are all great, valuable footprint digital footprint resources for us to have. So digital footprints, digital citizenship can kind of come along with the horror stories. But it's also good to remember that like, there's a lot of good that's happening online, and a lot of ways to demonstrate all the good that we have to offer through like academic projects. I love that positive thought. Yay. Share appropriately, we've kind of talked about this, it can be files or pictures, or, you know, if you have to think to yourself, I don't know if I'd want others to see this, or I don't, but I don't want this to get out, maybe don't share it at all in the first place, because you just never know. I think even, I think about some politics too, and how, you know, some of the posts these days are pretty harsh. Yeah. Boy, that, you know, thinking about, again, your employer seeing that, is that what you want your footprint to be, or I don't know. So that's a touchy one. Careful. Do search yourself. So we don't want to just turn a blind eye to what is out there already, or what might be out there. So every once in a while, Google search yourself. And another tip is to search your name first and last name, and then add like the name of the town you live in, or add the place that you've worked, or add like a detail about yourself, and that can bring up different articles or different things when you add a little bit more to the Google search. So every once in a while, just I would encourage you to try it and see what is out there that's visible to the public. Do use a privacy setting. So this is what Steph was alluding to earlier. So we don't want to intentionally let others negatively impact our footprint. So just know that like almost every app out there is going to have some sort of privacy setting, where like, for example, Facebook, maybe we make it turned off where others can't post pictures of us onto our Facebook wall. That way, if somebody were to share something that you would deem inappropriate, or just we wouldn't want it out there, they're not actually able to directly impact your account. So that's one example. But right. There's other privacy settings too. Well, and I think just the privacy of I'm not going to friend kids. Yeah, that's a good point. Yes. Yeah. So when I taught in the school setting, I would tell kids I couldn't be their friend until they graduated. And I never friend kids or my old students usually, I let them friend me if they feel like it's appropriate. And you can be really careful about the parents too. And in our small towns, that's a little bit harder because their parents are your neighbors and things like that. But just one more reason to be really positive online. Yes, that's thanks for sharing that. That's a good point. This slide is kind of remind you that that you might have more questions as we've talked or things might be popping up as you're thinking about long term impacts of some of the situations online. Or if you have a student come to you when you talk about this sort of thing and they realize they're in a world of trouble or they've done something XYZ. Just know that reach out if you would like help or talking through a situation or need help with settings or something that would help create the best digital footprint possible. So we're here to help you. Yeah, that's our job at the issue to serve our schools and the people that work there. Yes. Yeah, so as we're wrapping up this little portion of our call today, I appreciate you thinking through digital citizenship. What is one step that you could take to improve your footprint? We've talked about, you know, passwords and sharing and some of the settings and just best practices when we are working with students and when we're online or academically. So I would invite you to consider like, okay, what's one thing I do need to do better on and keep that in mind going forward. Great. So you're welcome to reach out to us anytime like we just said, but we're going to jump out to this Common Sense Media website. So this is a site that does have a lot of information on it. But in particular, when you go right to commonsense.org or common sense media, you can Google it. There will be this button down on the left here that says digital citizenship. And I had to click on four educators first to get that up. But as parents, there's a great, there's so many great resources here. So I'll click on digital citizenship though. Yeah, thanks. This site just to briefly scratch the surface on what some of it has. Here we're talking about helping students. If this comes up or if you're talking to a teacher and want to incorporate some more lessons to help them practice, you can go right, like she clicked digital citizenship, and then you might choose which grade level you're working with. And then there are pre made lessons that can teach a specific topic about digital citizenship, such as like cyberbullying, for example, or more about six or eight. Here's cyberbullying, right there. Yeah. And then within those, then there are each of those bolded ones, like it shows like they're 15 minutes. And there's sometimes there's videos, there's worksheets, there's like a little mini lesson plans, very specific objectives. So this is nice if you'll also help older students facilitate an activity with younger students. They could use some of this pre made information here. And it's just kind of a might have to be signed in. So that's okay for now, although you it's a free it's a free sign in. Don't don't hesitate to do that. And sure, I just say get online and start searching. There's so much here for you. Cool. Yeah, thank you. I just, yeah, I wanted to just point that side out. I think I showed it back in August when we were all together in Neely, but I bring it to your attention again if this topic is something you'd like to further explore with within your schools. Thank you, Steph, though, for the opportunity here to share more about it. And I'm looking forward to hearing a little more on some of your ideas with confidentiality. Hey, we always love having JC come on and share some of these ideas. So thanks, JC. And JC's out in schools all the time. Like I hardly see that woman. So maybe she's in your school and you can catch her when she's there to to ask a few questions about digital citizenship or other tech tips. So thank you. Yeah, I actually meant to say that. And so I appreciate you. Well, not the I appreciate the kind words, but I meant to say that when I am out in schools, sometimes it's there to help, you know, teachers, but I'm there for everybody. So Paris, if you see me wandering in your building, you're more than welcome to talk about tech stuff. Thanks. That's great. And we just wanted to comment on a little one of our para skills or para topics to always remember. And that's on confidentiality. And so I thought that paired really well with digital citizenship as well. So first of all, there is an actual law in our country called FERPA or Family Educational Rights Privacy Act that says that we can't give out information about students, especially, you know, if you're in charge of entering any data on the computer or maybe making copies or something like that of test scores or helping teacher with some report cards or something like that, we would never want to give out the information there. And a lot of you are also special education pairs. And if you know some details in a student's IEP or 504 plan, we would not want to share those details because, you know, they're really they're private, they are sensitive. And you can even think about it like this, you wouldn't want to share it with every staff member. It's just information for the staff members who need it. Okay, so if a student has a health concern, like they have a peanut allergy or something like that. And that's important that a lot of people know about if they're going to be supervising the lunch room or something like that. We need to know about those health concerns. That is one to share a little bit more broadly. But if we know a detail about an accommodation on somebody's IEP, or maybe some past abuse, a student has suffered or a family situation that they're going through, that is something that we would not share out. It's very sensitive and it only gets shared with the people who need it. All right, so just think about your communication, all the communication that you do throughout the day, the year. We need to watch what we say about school, kids, families, right? Like we said, we live in small towns. The other the parents at school are oftentimes your neighbors and friends. And they might ask you questions, right? What's been going on? I heard that kids, parents did this, that and the other thing or, oh, I heard that kid's just a terror in your classroom. That is not something to ever comment on. What happens in school or how about this? A parent whose child had a disciplinary action asked you, well, what did the other kid get? What happened with the other kid? Again, that's something to just say, hey, I just can't comment about school stuff. My job depends on me being, you know, not commenting. So please call the teacher. Please call the principal. Yeah, I think having your go-to phrase ready in those situations, because you can't always predict when somebody is going to approach you with those type of questions. So just have a phrase in mind when you get approached with an inappropriate question. Like what's your go-to phrase? Like you just said stuff like that. Oh, that's something I just really can't talk about. Yeah. Or feel free to call the school for more information. I just or, you know, or yeah. It's hard to say that to your good friends. Right. It is. But they'll understand it. They're your good friends. They'll understand. But I think just like we tell teenagers, blame it on the parents, right? Like my parents won't let me do that. Oh, my parents will kill me. That kind of thing. Just the same way. Oh, we've been told at school we can't comment. I'm going to need you to ask a teacher about that. Yeah. Yeah. I think that communication too, when we start to think about some of those really scary situations like school safety, people start talking, right? And, you know, they're concerned. They're scared. Parents are scared or community members are scared when they hear that there's been a threat to a school or something. It is best that you let all communication about those situations come directly from the office and just say, you know, really the principals informing the public on that. And that's where we'll leave it or you know, we've gone through lots of scenarios in the past trainings with with Paris. But those are some of the things that I think pop up that we just have to take ourselves out of it. And, you know, each of you might have kids at school, but if you're a school employee, you have to wear that hat and not the parent hat when you communicate with the public. That's a good point. You know, even situations like if a child has lice, we would never reveal who or, you know, we say things like it's been found in a classroom and you're encouraged to check your child. Your child has been checked at home, that kind of thing, but we would never reveal a name on that. Okay. But then online. So JC talked about this a lot, but just keep it positive. Don't talk about details at school. I think about those comments even like, you know, we all have to vent sometimes, but, you know, if you comment, oh, it's been a day. The kids were absolutely crazy at school. I'm counting down the days till summer break. That just doesn't shine the school in a positive light. And, you know, it's best to not say that if you can not say that it was a terrible day. But say something positive to like, wow, you know, evening's here and I'm so happy to be in my calm home, whatever it may be. Turn it around. Flip that thought. We played that game at summer training. Flip that thought. In a way, we really are like ambassadors of the school. We're here to, you know, support each other and we want to create an environment that's safe. And part of being safe is knowing that we can rest easy with what happens in the building. So, yeah, creating that like trust amongst everyone that we can rely on each other to only communicate appropriately, whether in person or online. Yeah. And, you know, I think we mentioned that whole, you know, don't get involved in the banter that goes back and forth online sometimes. And sometimes that's in a protective nature of the school. Like you see someone bash the school and so you want to support them. That's not how it happened. It happened like this. Well, now we've just given away some of those details that just shouldn't be shared out. So, blame it on your principal, blame it on the teachers, right? Send it right to them and they'll be happy to handle that for you as Paris. So, all right. And just remember, all of our resources are always available online. So it's bit.ly slash Paris of ESU 8. That's a shortener that gets you there a little bit easier. If you ever have trouble getting there through that shortener at school, just let me know. I can send you a longer link to get there as well. It's available on our ESU 8 page. So, yeah. So you can click on this training there and watch this video. You probably got there today to see it through this link. But we have all of our past trainings stored there as well. So if you're a newer para and you haven't been here in the past six years that we've been doing these trainings, you could go look for another topic that maybe is coming up and is really pertinent to you right now. And peace out, guys. We'll see you in April. April 4th, we'll talk about ELL supports with Claire, Kate here on our staff. She works a lot with that. So I think there'll be valuable tips for you there as we work with a diverse population in our area. So, Steph, it's such a gift to have you compile all these resources over time onto that site. You've done such a nice job putting together quality opportunities for Paris and everyone to take advantage of. So thank you for all of your work. Well, thanks, JC. And I get by with a little help from my friends. So thanks to everybody willing to join in and share topics. Paris, that's just another reminder too. If you ever have something you want to know more about, shoot it my way. And I'd love to hit that topic through the months or in August. Alrighty. So thank you so much. Paris, you make school a better place. You make it successful. You make kids successful. And I know as a teacher, I never would have gotten by without you. So keep doing what you're doing and loving those kids. And thanks so much. Thanks to Canva for this nice little design too. So we'll see you all next time. Thank you. See you.