Information Services
Massachusetts Online Network for Education (MassONE)

MassONE Update - November 2008

Protecting Children in the 21st Century

The Broadband Data Improvement Act, signed into law on October 10, includes a section designed to protect children. The law adds a requirement to the Internet Safety Policy that each district must have in order to receive funding from E-Rate and technology grants. Districts must educate minors about "appropriate online behavior, including interacting with other individuals on social networking websites and in chat rooms and cyberbullying awareness and response." In 2009, the Department will add this requirement to the CIPA assurance that districts sign when applying for technology funding.

Resources for Teaching about Safety

The state's 2008 Technology Literacy Standards and Expectations include standards on Ethics and Safety. You can find these standards by going to MassONE's Curriculum Tools, and selecting "Search academic frameworks," and then using the dropdown menu to access the Technology Literacy Standards and Expectations. You can then search for standards for specific grade levels. The printable version of the standards is available at http://www.doe.mass.edu/edtech/standards.html.

MassONE's also offers a number of resources to help school increase awareness of Internet safety issues. Thanks to the Commonwealth's Information Technology Division (ITD), the TLR has a new Cyber Security Toolkit, which contains a reproducible calendar, brochures, and other information for administrators, educators, students, and parents. The TLR also contains a collection of Netsmartz resources, including videos and interactive activities, designed to teach Internet safety to children, teens, and parents.

Cyber Safety Poster Contest

Resources to Enhance Teaching and Learning

Thinkfinity is a comprehensive program that provides teachers with over 55,000 online educational resources, including standards-based, grade-specific, K-12 lesson plans and interactive tools and materials. MassONE's lesson plan tool offers links to Thinkfinity, so that teachers can create customized lesson plans incorporating its resources. With a grant from Verizon, Massachusetts has created a statewide network of Thinkfinity trainers, who can provide professional development to other educators. For specific information about trainings in your area, you can contact one of the Thinkfinity listed on the Department's web site .

Ideas for using MassONE

Ann Morgan, the MassONE Admin from Chatham Middle School has some great ideas for using MassONE, and she shared them recently in a presentation at the annual Massachusetts Title I Conference. Ann showed how teachers can use MassONE tools to conveniently post assignments online, allow students to work at their own pace, and collect student work.

Ann first demonstrated how the Announcements tool can be used to post assignments, which can include links and attached files. Next she explained how each student can use his or her My Folder to securely store assignments that they are working on. Ann pointed out that using MassONE allows students and teachers to access all of these materials anywhere---at school, at home, at a local library, or any place with Internet access. Finally Ann explained how teachers can collect assignments electronically by creating dropboxes. A dropbox is like any other shared folder, with a few important differences: Students can upload files to the dropbox, but they cannot download files, and they cannot view their classmates' assignments.

If you'd like to try some of Ann's ideas in your classroom, just log into MassONE and get started! If you need help, click the Help icon at the top of the screen.

Do you have a great idea for using MassONE?

MassONE is always looking for creative, effective uses of its tools to improve teaching and learning. If you have an idea that you think would be useful to others, send it to MassONE at massonehelp@doe.mass.edu. Promising practices will be published in future issues of the MassONE newsletter.

Setting up student accounts

Do you know how easy it is to set up MassONE accounts for your students? MassONE has preloaded student ID numbers (SASIDs) into the system, so teachers no longer need to provide that information. Teachers can create student accounts by simply searching for the names of their students, selecting the names, and then adding them to their workgroup. MassONE automatically produces a list of students' usernames and passwords. For more information on how to set up accounts, log into MassONE, click the Help icon at the top of the screen, and then select "Student Registration."

Back up your files

If you are storing important files on MassONE's Virtual Hard Drive or My Folder, it's a good idea to store copies of those files on another system, such as your own hard drive, a CD, or your school's network. An archive tool is provided for both the Virtual Hard Drive and the My Folder, which compresses the documents and stores them on your local computer.

Help using MassONE

Back issues of newsletters

If you missed any previous issues of the MassONE newsletter, you can now find them on the MassONE web site. To access them, click MassONE News Archives on the MassONE home page.