Do You Know Where Your Students Are? Digital Supervision and Digital Privacy in Schools

摘要

More students are now online at school because of severalfactors such as the increasing affordability of mobiledevices; the rapid proliferation of low-cost or freeeducational applications; and because internet access ismore widely available. When students are learning online,however, their personal information needs to be protected.Student supervision in the past focused on physicalpresence, but it must evolve now to include students indigital settings. Updated legislative policy alone cannoteliminate risks to digital privacy. Students, teachers, andparents need to become more aware of the privacy risks andall should build digital citizenship skills. The researchpresented in this paper is policy analysis that examines theavailability and direction of digital supervision policies inCanada and the U.S. and then compares the findings tointernational policies and directions. The authors find keydifferences in policy approaches designed to supervisestudents online and protect their digital privacy. Based onthis policy analysis, the authors recommend that morecollaborative efforts are needed to protect students’ digitalprivacy and manage their online risks.