[Offtopic] Been on video?

[stephen at melbpc.org.au]

Hi all,

Does your school's mobile phone protocols cover this?

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Phone camera rules needed to protect teachers

ANNA PATTY and MATTHEW BENNS,  November 29, 2009 

http://www.theage.com.au/technology/technology-news/phone-camera-rules-
needed-to-protect-teachers-20091128-jxvz.html


MOBILE phones are being increasingly used as a teaching aid in the 
classroom, despite the risk of students uploading footage on to video-
sharing websites to name and shame their teachers.

Now guidelines are being developed to protect the privacy of teachers and 
students when mobile phones are used to film in classrooms.

Jim McAlpine, president of the NSW Secondary Principals Council, said it 
would be wrong to remove mobile phones from classrooms.

"We cannot ban technology - that would be like returning to horses 
instead of cars," he said. 

"The sooner students are taught about the ethical use of mobile phones 
and laptops the better."

But Mr McAlpine said there had to be consequences for the inappropriate 
use of mobile phones.

The issue was highlighted in Britain this year when a teacher in 
Liverpool became a star on video-sharing website YouTube after a pupil 
secretly filmed him pretending to be a chicken.

Another site, called Desishock Videos has uploaded footage under the 
title Stupid Teacher - Standard Of Education in Pakistan. The person who 
claims to have taken it on a camcorder hidden in a pouch said the teacher 
had been sacked after it was shown.

The NSW Department of Education said individual schools were responsible 
for developing their own mobile phone protocols.

Dianne Giblin, president of the NSW P&C Association, said: "We support 
young people keeping their technology with them - to remove it would be 
to deny them their social networks. I used to pass notes in school and 
text messaging is just a more sophisticated way of doing it."

"But we do need the education processes in place to ensure the 
appropriate use of that technology."

Source: The Sydney Morning Herald

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Cheers,
Stephen