Student Data Privacy Information Session
How do CPS teachers decide on what applications are okay or not okay for students to use in school? What happens with the information students create using online applications? If you would like to explore these questions and hear from the people that make those decisions for Cambridge Public Schools (CPS) please come to our information session!
I am hosting a Student Data Privacy Information Session for parents on Monday, January 8th at 8:30AM in the library at King. Steve Smith (Chief Information Officer of ICTS) and Gina Roughton (Director of Educational Technology) will be present and we hope to provide you with some information about how student data is handled at CPS and to be able to hear your concerns and answer any questions you may have.
When: Monday, 1/8/18 at 8:30AM
Where: King’s Library (Learning Commons)
For Whom: King parents/guardians curious about or with concerns about Student Data Privacy
Computer Science Week
Another December, another exciting Computer Science Week (or month as we celebrate it here). As always, I love connecting the technology we all use with the ideas and processes behind it. Students learn some of the ideas (Computational Thinking!) and vocabulary (Algorithms! Conditional Statements! Loops!) that make our technology function by engaging in fun and varied activities.
Junior Kindergarten through second grade classes learned about programming (and algorithms) by coding Flurbs (pom poms with feet) to get through mazes using a limited series of commands. Other grades engaged in thinking about how our technology functions and how coding works by working with and hearing directly from computer science students from CRLS, parent-programmers, and other computer scientist from our community (we even had a game designer from Zynga!). Students dove further into computational thinking by using Code.org on chromebooks and iPads and by creating in Scratch (a visual programming language from MIT’s Lifelong Kindergarten group.)
If you are interested in more information or your student wants to code at home, go to the
Code.Org website or email me at
[email protected] with questions or to ask for recommendations. I am always happy to have a conversation about CS or answer any questions you might have about technology at King. Also, if you are interested in Student Data Privacy in Cambridge Public Schools, please join us on Monday, January 8th at 8:30AM in the library for a parent information session with Gina Roughton (Director of Educational Technology) and Steve Smith (CIO of Information, Communication, and Technology Services).
Heather French
Instructional Technology Specialist