December 14, 2023
By MEALAND RAGLAND-HUDGINS
Rutherford County Schools
Technology and education have gone hand in hand for most of the time Jill Hines has been an educator.
Hines, an instructional coach at Stewarts Creek Elementary, has been in education for 28 years. She spent six years in Texas before joining Rutherford County Schools in 2003.
She recently became the first-ever Common Sense Ambassador for RCS, having helped Stewarts Creek Elementary become a Common Sense School in 2022. Formed in 2003, Common Sense Education is rooted in helping families navigate media and technology while keeping themselves safe and adopting healthy digital consumption habits.
While working in Texas, Hines started helping her coworkers navigate the digital age of education.
“I taught teachers how to use technology and the internet (that was the very beginning of this interesting little website called Google), and also maintained a classroom teaching position at the same time,” she said.
Hines recently shared what it means to be a Common Sense Ambassador and ways parents can keep their children safe online as winter break approaches.
What was your role in helping SCE becoming a Common Sense school?
Hines: CommonSense.org has an entire section for educators — teachers have to create an account to utilize their resources. I have an account, and when I started using their website, their pre-made digital citizenship lessons were PDFs to print and use, so that is how I started. I would pull their lessons and go to classrooms to teach about internet safety.
For the past few years, we have a technology class in the related arts rotation, and an educational assistant runs that class. I make all the plans for that class, and teach Mrs. Bowling what to do with the students. I also teach in the computer lab as time allows. I enrolled all students into a class at Code.org — that is a webpage that is working in conjunction with CommonSense.org to spread the message of digital safety along with stem coding learning for students.
The kids work through courses at their own pace. Each course gives them multi levels of lessons; there is a Common Sense digital citizenship lesson, then there is a “how to code” lesson … this pattern goes back and forth, using videos and hands on learning. I check in with students in the computer lab, evaluating if they are understanding the lessons and checking for understanding.
I have also taught in many classrooms about the importance of digital citizenship and what that means for them, the student. We have discussed the need to keep their passwords private, the importance of only saying online what we would say to someone’s face (a.k.a. not to cyberbully), and how what is done on social media can follow them and hurt their ability to get a job in the future. I also emphasize that all of the social media outlets require them to be 13 years old to have an account, per federal law.
What is the process for being a Common Sense Ambassador?
Hines: To be a Common Sense Ambassador, you have to have completed at least one of CommonSense.org’s courses or webinars, taught a digital citizenship lesson to students, engaged families by sharing digital citizenship resources, and write an essay about why digital citizenship is important to you.
I started by becoming a Common Sense School, and many of the items on the list above have to be completed to earn that recognition, so I completed the other tasks to become an ambassador. At the two parent-teacher conference nights at SCE, each grade level and the related arts team create tables with resources for parents to grab and help their children at home. I took the initiative to create my own table with CommonSense.org’s resources and talk with parents on both of those occasions on a variety of digital safety topics. I love the commonsense.org resources because they already have the information translated into many different languages, so I choose a topic and print what I need in the languages we serve at SCE. I always have information about how RCS provides Microsoft products for students as well.
How much of what you saw in Common Sense training fell in line with what you were already teaching students when you were a classroom teacher?
Hines: When I started teaching teachers about Google in 1999, I could see the need for working with kids about best practices on the internet. Soon after Google, MySpace became a giant in the early years of social media. I knew then that kids would grab hold of these emerging technologies, and in their innocence, possibly share too much and get hurt. I always want to keep children safe, so digital/internet safety has been something I have taught almost all of my classroom instruction years. Common Sense brought all the information together in one place, making teaching students about safety online so much easier for a classroom teacher or for a school program.
As winter break approaches, what advice would you give parents and guardians about having students practice healthy digital habits?
Hines: My first piece of advice is proximity. I would want my child, especially as they first start searching on the internet, to be in a location where I could walk by and see what they were doing. A child alone in their bedroom with the door closed with a laptop on the internet with no monitoring software is not a good practice. I would most definitely check on what apps your child is using, check their internet history to see what they are searching for and watching.
Social media is a concern for children. Children are simply not ready for the ramifications that can come from posting comments and videos, which is why there is a Federal Rule called COPPA – Children’s Online Privacy and Protection Rule. This imposes that websites are not to allow services to children under the age of 13.
I would not want elementary age children to have their own TikTok account (the fastest growing app for ages 18-24) or Instagram or Facebook. There will be plenty of time for children to post on social media when they are over 13.
Just please, be aware of what your children are doing online and on their phones. Remember, you are the parent, you paid for the laptop, iPad, phone and internet. You have the right and the responsibility to look over their shoulder, monitor what they are doing, and teach them how to handle websites, searching and social media for the good of their world.