When most of us were kids, interactions between teachers, students and parents happened face-to-face in the classroom, at home or on the playground. Emails, texting, social media feeds, blogs weren’t a part of our school lives, but connecting online is now a core part of each student’s educational experience.
Last month, students, parents, teachers and safety advocates came together on Safer Internet Day (#SID2015) to talk about ways to be safe online and build a better internet together. Staying safe while using our favorite apps is incredibly important, and should also be easy for everyone to do — whether its taking an extra minute to think about a message before sending , or being aware of reporting tools to keep the community safe. Practicing and teaching digital citizenship is everyone’s responsibility.
This is why we partnered with Common Sense Media on a Digital Citizenship guide and week of lesson plans that will help teachers facilitate conversations about online safety with their school community. We hope teachers and parents can use this Guide to help students understand digital footprints and how their choices online impact their lives and their futures.
Following our Chat announcement last week, our team is excited that educators will now have the ability to send personalized messages on Remind. It’s important to us that using Remind remains as safe and secure for teachers, students and parents as ever before. Everyone on Remind can still download their own message history, join and leave a class as needed, report users, and refer to our new Community Guidelines at any time. For teachers, here are some additional things that you can do on Remind to keep your classes safe and secure:
Double check the class or subscriber names in the TO: field before sending Announcements
Double check Announcements, Chat messages and attachments before sending (you don’t want to accidentally send any private information or sensitive details)
Review your subscriber list often
Only share your class code with your class (don’t post online or on website)
Only send links to sites that you trust
Secure your account by using a strong password and by adding a passcode on your device (computer / phone)
Leave any class you don’t want to be in by unsubscribing. Someone cannot message you unless you have joined his/her class.
Report any users that act outside of our Community Guidelines (Soon, you’ll see a way to report users from within the app)
As we work with teachers around the world, our team is constantly reminded about the importance of keeping safety and simplicity at the core of the product. Doing this successfully means that we empower all teachers to build a positive community inside and outside the classroom. Be sure to let us know what you think about the Digital Citizenship Guide and our latest safety features by reaching out to us on Twitter or sending us an e-mail!