DRAFT Think.com Procedures

·        #1 Priority is to monitor what YOUR students post – assignment responses polls, photos, down loaded images/music/documents et al on their sites.   If you happen upon inappropriate content from a student who is not “yours” by all means delete/flag and explain.  TELL your students that any adult who looks at their site has the ability to delete inappropriate content.  Adult monitors include: Dr. Andersen, Mrs. Crawford, Mrs. Brant, and all LA teachers.                                                           ALL of these adults have rights to delete content!

·        #2 Priority is to review content (approving photos). Failure to review content revokes site access for the SCHOOL!   

·        Inappropriate content includes suggestive words and photos, jokes that are offensive, content that is so far off base of an assignment ex. Who do you love? Names of students at our school.  Polls and other posts that might hurt feelings or are against school rules.

·        Think.com’s purpose if for students to publish for an audience of their peers. It is OK for students to sticky note each other even if they are in another teacher’s class. It is NOT OK for students to use bad words, slander, racial comments see discipline code. Teach them to sticky correctly for example: Post 2 compliments and a wish,  a question regarding assignment, basically something related to the site content.

·        Most of the student’s site should be devoted to language arts/educational content: posting assignment responses. It is the teacher’s responsibility to assign things to be posted and to brainstorm in class ideas for polls, media, etc…

Ex. Post 2 photos, 1 song, and a poll that expresses the theme of the novel ______.

·        To be fair to all users: Teachers who fail to monitor students’ posts and fail to assign standards-based appropriate work for students to work with will be required to deactivate all student accounts they created for their classes.

·        Micromanaging “sticky”s will drive you nuts! If you see something by all means flag content and delete. But it is not time effective to read and follow sticky trails. Read posts and review content. As the assignments get tougher you’ll see less stickys and more valid work.

·        Students should be expected to post ALL items in proper English – as much as possible - proper capitalization, punctuation, spelling and grammar should be used.

·        Students who abuse think.com MUST be removed immediately.  Please deactivate these students. A few can ruin it for everyone.

·        The general policy is that if a student is removed from think.com for inappropriate behavior, then they must complete all assignments by hand for a reduced grade.

·        Think.com automatically sensors bad language. Students can be creative ex. sexy is not allowed so students are using $exy instead. Please delete.  If proper English is stressed this won’t be an issue. For a list of words that are not allowed check the website.

Using Think.com will be a learning process for all teachers involved.  It will evolve and if used carefully and educationally an excellent forum for teachers and students to share their writing and thoughts about language arts/learning!