Data security and professionalism in the extracurricular
The artifact.
I am hosting a Creative Writing Club at Yale Secondary School during my certifying quarter. As I started brainstorming ideas for the club, I contacted two students from my English 9 class in Quarter 1. Both students had shown talent and enthusiasm about creative writing and interest in taking on a leadership role in the club. We set up a Google Meet call, and they gave me the student perspective on club size, age range, promotion methods, and the final one that was immense: platform choice.
I knew we would need to hold our meetings online (due to COVID-19 restrictions), and the only platform I knew that was supported by the school community already was the Google Suite. I immediately set up a Google Classroom page for posting announcements, resources, shared Drive folders, and holding Google Meet calls with breakout rooms.
But when I sat down with my students and heard their perspectives, they were quite adamant that the Google Classroom platform seems too cold, formal, and unfriendly to them to be suitable for a club. As an alternative, they named Discord.
Discord is an American instant messaging and digital distribution platform that allows users to communicate with voice calls, video calls, text messaging, media, and files in private chats and/or as part of communities. It’s a great platform because it is streamlined and functional, and many students use it with their friends already for gaming, E-Sports, or other online hangouts. Discord seems like an appropriate choice of platform to host a school club.
I knew Discord has its server outside Google Suites and Canada, so I got in touch with the English department to get a Supplementary Digital Learning Services Consent Form for students to sign with their parents/guardians.
For our first meeting, we met via a Google Classroom server and on a Meet call, but I gave students the form immediately to ensure we could switch to Discord right away. Over the course of week 2, students came by my classroom to grab and drop off the consent forms; this allowed me to monitor who was joining and also gave me a way to meet students in person, even if only for a moment. We were ready to hold our second meeting through Discord by week 2.
Over the past few weeks, I have had several shorter meetings with my student volunteers to establish professional guidelines on the Discord server, as well as create “bots” that regulate privacy settings, profanity filters, and other flags to make moderation on this new platform easier for me. From the very beginning, my student volunteers and I are determined to keep the club professional, safe, and well-regulated, while still allowing students to use an app they prefer for an app setting.
Why it matters.
School is a working environment, so teachers are responsible for regulating an environment that is professional, conducive to learning, and prepares students for the workforce. School-related activities should uphold levels of professionalism. More specifically, especially when data privacy is at stake and technology is being used in a less structured setting (like in a club), school should become a way to model good digital citizenship.
This topic is important more specifically in terms of data privacy. When it is the case, the Abbotsford school district (SD 34) is required by law to inform guardians and students that student data may be located on foreign servers. According to the Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act (FIPPA), personal information is collected by the district to let guardians know of this and ensure everyone involved is aware that the information from the students’ accounts may be subject to foreign jurisdictions and laws.
The role of the teacher is to be a role model – any harmful activities might hinder that image are out of the question. In the weeks since starting to use Discord for the club, I’ve needed to establish a culture of professionalism, safety, and fun on the server. Despite using a more relaxed platform, it was important to me that everyone on the Creative Writing server upheld school expectations of appropriate conduct.
I truly believe that establishing these professional expectations, even while using a platform that students consider more friendly and relaxed, is important to teaching students the line between professional and personal. The young adults in my club are still learning what it means to form peer connections, have fun, learn plenty, but also do all these things in a professional context. It is my role as their teacher to ensure these professional expectations are upheld for the safety of everybody involved.
Next steps.
In this club, I value maintaining a professional atmosphere and culture of respect. For this reason, I’d love to start off with more structured meetings and a workshop on giving helpful and encouraging constructive writing feedback. As the quarter continues, I’d love to offer the students and volunteers opportunities to take on more leadership — for example, bring an article to talk about writing skills, share a favourite piece of writing, facilitate a discussion, share their writing and host a workshop. The hope is that, by the end of the quarter, the students would have the cultural norms and workshop skills at their disposal to continue to host creative writing club meetings and grow in their writing skills, as well as their relationships with each other.
Professional Standard #2: Educators act ethically and maintain the integrity, credibility, and reputation of the profession.