We, as staff, have had many conversations around the topic of student photos on the internet. As part of a new ICT cluster, teaching children to use Web Technology has been a focus for us this year. With that came the teaching of web etiquette and all that that encompassed.
Being able to share photos of students’ learning, succeeding, playing etc was an excellent way of keeping whanau and friends up to date with what was happening at school and allowing them to share these experiences.
Of course for us, the ultimate decision was with parents. We shared our reasons for posting photos with parents and explained the guidelines that we would adhere too. It then came down to them. Most families are at ease with the use of photos on our blogs and wikis. A few are not. We respect that and use avatars for those students. Personally I respect a student’s own wishes as well, with a few in my class who prefer not to have their photos posted.
We only use photos that have no identifying elements and are named with first names only. One of our student blogging rules concerns the posting of photographs as well. We have discussed at some length the reasons for selective photo posting. I feel this is an opportunity for my emerging adolescent students to understand the power of the internet before they have their own blogs, facebook profiles etc.
