Rondout Dist. 72 to study digital learning

While the Internet can be a boundless resource for students, Rondout District 72 plans to expand instruction beyond where to find information.

The tiny district near Lake Forest will be hosting forums this year to include residents and parents as part of its Digital Citizenship Project.

"It goes above and beyond the whole idea of Internet safety," said Supt. Jenny Wojcik. "It's not only how to stay safe but the responsibility you have when you're a member of the e-community."

Rondout already had been providing safety instruction for kindergarten through eighth-grade students in weekly technology classes, but plans to expand its reach through a series of community forums beginning this fall.

Those likely will include: social networking, texting and "sexting;" protection from predators; parents' legal responsibilities; and raising children in a digital world, according to Wojcik. The forums have not yet been scheduled.

"It takes it a couple of steps beyond, 'How do you use the Internet to find information?'" she said. "While it's important to provide students with content instruction, we're thinking about life skills and really being transformative."

A small but well-funded district, Rondout for the last four years has been operating a one-to-one initiative, in which each student in sixth through eighth grades has access to a laptop. The ratio is two students per laptop in lower grades.

The district also will be stepping up basic instruction, Wojcik said.

"We really need to help individuals and our students (with) what are accurate sources of information," she said. As part of the instruction, older students will become leaders working with those in lower grades.

"This is going to be part of children's lives," Wojcik said. "They really need to think about the responsibility they have as citizens of a digital world."

Beginning this school year, public school districts must incorporate a component of Internet safety to be taught at lease once a year to students in third grade and above. Individual school boards determine the scope and duration of the instruction.

Components of the state mandate include the responsible use of social networking Web sites, chat rooms, e-mail and bulletin boards, for example. Students also are supposed to be instructed on how to recognize, avoid and report online solicitations by sexual predators among other features.

It also is standard practice for districts to require parents to approve of Internet use in the schools.

In Diamond Lake District 76, for example, parents have to sign an agreement for Internet access, which includes a list of non-permitted uses, including accessing or sending offensive materials. Improper use can result in expulsion.