Electronic Communication & Supervision

Purpose

The Electronic Communication, Supervision, and Acceptable Use Policies outline the measures and requirements that SelfDesign has in place to keep learners and families safe in our online learning environment.

The following policies provide details on the required use of SelfDesign systems and accounts for all electronic communications, the appropriate use of SelfDesign equipment, hardware and software, and the protocols in place for monitoring the electronic communication between educators and learners/parents and between learners and addressing any concerns that arise.

Policy

All families and learners, new and returning, enter our online community through our technology systems including Portal and the Learning Platform.

SelfDesign stores all communications between learners and educators in the Learning Platform, or in email. Parents/guardians of K-9 learners should oversee all communications. SelfDesign administration monitors communications to ensure accountability. SelfDesign provides use of video meeting software for face-to-face communications. All users of the video meeting software are responsible to adhere to the Acceptable Use policy.

Learners and parents/guardians must agree in the Program Agreements to use SelfDesign’s systems appropriately.

Acceptable Conduct for Community Participation

We expect respectful and positive language and a willingness to listen and encourage conversations that deepen and expand our perceptions of ourselves, others and the world. In this learning community, we want to have conversations that contribute to the quality of understanding between people and the quality of life on earth.
We expect conversations to be respectful of the rights and sensibilities of other people. Behaviour which breaches the BC Human Rights Code and Federal hate laws, as well as the SelfDesign policy on an Educational Environment of Safety, Acceptance and Respect, including: sexually explicit language, pornography, copyrighted material (other than short samples), swearing and violence oriented language are not acceptable.
While these are concepts that have some gray areas in terms of definition, avoid the use of sarcasm. Do not use terms that denigrate other’s ideas such as calling them stupid or ridiculous.
SelfDesign Learning Community is a family environment; it is therefore important that all topics and conversations in any SelfDesign discussion spaces/forums be respectful of children and their sensibilities.
SelfDesign cannot be responsible for postings/conversations that occur through private mail outside of SelfDesign discussion spaces/forums, through outside chat groups, etc. We recommend that parents/guardians be aware of the internet environments in which their children are posting. SelfDesign spot checks and monitors contents of postings within any SelfDesign discussion spaces/forums.
Content in any discussion spaces/forums within SelfDesign is considered to be exclusive to SelfDesign. If you wish to copy, print or send out work to others, please ask for permission from the writer and respect their wishes.
Content in SelfDesign discussion spaces/forums is private. Please do not post people’s comments outside of spaces/forums unless you have obtained specific permission to do so.
When responding to or quoting another person, unless you have their permission, please post only to discussion spaces/forums in which the writer originally posted.
SelfDesign encourages diversity of opinion and healthy, respectful discussion of ideas. Accordingly, if you encounter an idea or opinion contrary to your own we encourage you to be considerate and inclusive when giving feedback or criticism to another’s work and/or opinions. Similarly, if soliciting feedback on your work or ideas, it helps to request, and clarify a specific kind of feedback you may want from others.

If you discover something that may represent a breach of the guidelines for appropriate use as outlined in this document such as objectionable language in conferences or in chats, or if you feel offended by someone else’s behaviour, you may respond directly to the poster in a conference or e-mail them privately and if you wish, send a copy to the Principal or Vice Principal. It is helpful to provide a sample of the communication or direct quotes. If you do not wish to contact the poster directly, you may send a message to someone from the Principal or Vice Principal for consideration. SelfDesign will investigate the concern and report on the progress of the investigation.

Protocols

Sign in using your own ID so that people will know who is online, who has posted messages and e-mail and with whom they are chatting.
Consider the relevance of your message to the topic of the discussion forum/space before posting.
Within discussion spaces/forums, try to keep your posts relevant to the subject thread. If you want to change the subject, start a new thread by changing the subject line. If you want to reply to a post in a current thread, choose one of the Reply options from the Message menu.
Refrain from posting one message to multiple discussion spaces/forums. This is called cross posting.
Use BCC when sending emails to multiple addresses.

When replying to a message, please quote all or part of the message to which you are replying so others can understand your response.

It is important to remember that without facial expression and voice tone to accompany words, it is easy to misinterpret the meaning of someone else’s posts and to miscommunicate when you write. Attempt to write enough in your message that others will understand what you are talking about.
Please post a reader-friendly biographical sketch of yourself in profile and account information in the various platforms so that people can know a little about who you are.

Change Log