From time to time, we've held blogging challenges in the Canvas Community, and the contributed content has been amazing. Recently, it's been noticed that there's a need for content that focuses on student privacy and, more specifically, FERPA.
Like always, share your insight and then learn from others. Get involved, and encourage others to do the same!
THE CHALLENGE
Student information needs to be protected, and student privacy needs to be respected. However, sometimes avoidable mistakes happen, and those often occur during to lack of knowledge of FERPA, in general.
What is the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act, exactly?
The Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA) is a Federal law that protects the privacy of student education records. The law applies to all schools that receive funds under an applicable program of the U.S. Department of Education.
FERPA gives parents certain rights with respect to their children's education records. These rights transfer to the student when he or she reaches the age of 18 or attends a school beyond the high school level. Students to whom the rights have transferred are "eligible students."
In the Canvas Community, there are not many resources that can provide Community members with the context of how FERPA is/should be an active component of the classroom. With the help of a powerful group of bloggers, Community members would be able to share resources with others who are looking for clarification or “real world” applications regarding FERPA.
Here are a few questions to inspire you as you begin to write. You do not need to answer them all or answer them directly; just pick what inspires you!
- What are some logical applications of FERPA in teaching? This could be from a K12 or Higher Education perspective.
- How does FERPA impact your classroom?
- How does FERPA influence some of the day-to-day decisions you make as an educator?
- How does FERPA impact your classroom?
- How would you respond to a colleague who was breaking FERPA rules?
- Does your institution provide direct training on FERPA? What types of activities or resources do they share?
Set aside some time for some reflection and writing. Think about how this prompt applies to you and your classroom on a daily basis.
To begin sharing your story, you will need to find the Canvas Admins or Higher Education group. (If you aren’t already a member of the group where you want to share your writing, you will need to join the group in order to publish your blog post.) Next, at the top of the page, click Content. Then, along the left-hand-side of the screen, click Write a Blog Post. On the next screen, you will see a blank template that will house your blog post. Enter a title and a banner image. Now you can start to write about your stories, insights, and reflections!
Before you publish your blog post, please add two important tags within the Tag This Blog Post section of the template! Make sure to enter the tags correctly. That way, it will be easier to search for all of the contributions for this Blogging Challenge! Without the tags, you may not get the recognition you deserve or qualify for the rewards.
- Blogging-Challenge
- FERPA
- 2020
REWARDS
All authors who submit a blog post before March 13th will receive 250 Community points and receive an exclusive badge added to their profile in the Canvas Community.
As long as Jive points are working, additional point prizes will also be rewarded:
- 250 additional points = Top 10 posts (based on # likes, views, bookmarks, shares, quality of comments, and the opinions of the Canvas Community Managers + Coaches.)
- 500 additional points = #1 Winner (from the Top 10) determined by the Community in a poll
DEADLINES
- March 13, 2020: All posts must be published and tagged correctly to be considered for the TOP 10. Posts published after the deadline will be welcomed, but unfortunately, they will not be considered for this contest.
- March 17, 2020: The top 10 blog posts will be announced in a poll within the Advocates group and will be eligible for voting. The authors will have two weeks to increase the visibility and ranking of their blog. Share it, tweet it, get people to read and rate it, comment on it, etc. to help surface your post to the top.
- April 1, 2020: The overall winner will be announced.
