Digital Citizenship
What is Digital Citizenship?
The Children's Internet Protection Act (CIPA) was enacted by Congress in 2000 to address concerns about children's access to obscene or harmful content over the Internet. Schools subject to CIPA have two additional certification requirements: 1) their Internet safety policies must include monitoring the online activities of minors; and 2) as required by the Protecting Children in the 21st Century Act, they must provide for educating minors about appropriate online behavior, including interacting with other individuals on social networking websites and in chat rooms, and cyberbullying awareness and response.
Anna ISD is committed to having an Internet safety policy that includes technology protection measures. The protection measures block or filter Internet access to pictures that are: (a) obscene; (b) child pornography; or (c) harmful to minors (for computers that are accessed by minors) through GoGuardian, a software company that helps districts manage a fleet of Chromebooks. GoGuardian Admin is primarily used to filter the content of the Internet on the district-owned Chromebooks. The district’s IT staff creates filtering policies that block or allow websites based on predetermined categories and are assigned to students.
GoGuardian’s content filtering only applies to the district-owned Chromebooks. Students using laptops, desktops, or personal devices on the district’s wifi network are filtered through Fortinet. This does not filter or monitor sites accessed by students using a personal device on cellular service. GoGuardian keeps track of the websites that a student visits on their device. A report provides a chronological timeline of websites visited along with how much time was spent on each site. Even if the browsing history is erased, the record is still available from when they were online.
In 6th-12th grade classrooms, GoGuardian Teacher allows teachers to see what is on the screen of every student in their classroom. They can see the active tab the student is currently looking at, as well as any other open tabs in the browser. These tabs can be sites, documents, games, etc., that may be open but not used.
Beginning in the 2022-2023 school year, Anna ISD will use Neptune Navigate, an online digital citizenship curriculum, to educate students about appropriate online behavior, including interacting with other individuals on social networking websites and in chat rooms, and cyberbullying awareness and response. Neptune Navigate features custom materials targeted by grade level and self-paced, online modules for staff. The online modules can be completed as a class or online at home. The program also includes "Continue the Conversation" materials for engaging parents. The topics covered by the Neptune Navigate curriculum are: Digital Citizenship, Cyberbullying, Digital Footprint, Social Media, Digital World Basics, Media Literacy, Privacy & Cyber Awareness, Tech Laws and Age Appropriateness.