Cyber+Safety

It is important to know how and if your child is being protected online. At MCES this is a priority and there are steps being taken to ensure that cyber safety is a top priority. Specifically, here on Wikispace, I can tell you as a student or parent how you are being protected:

After creating an account, it is important that you click on "dashboard" then "add a wiki". By doing this, you are requesting membership to our particular wiki and you then become a participant that can edit the wiki. You must be approved by me to be able to do this and only MCES parents and students will be approved. So the webmaster (me, Mrs. Thomas) controls who becomes a member.
 * //__Through Wikispace Membership__//**

If you are a member of our MCES Wikispace page and you were to go to another wikispace page that is controlled and operated by another school system, for example, you would not be able to edit that wiki. Because of the Wikispace protection option, only members can post or edit a page within their wiki. Those students and parents that are members that are editing and posting will show up on our "History" page. If something goes awry (someone posts something they aren't supposed to, or ruins another's work) a "footprint" will be left and I will be able to trace who did what. If there are any problems that I cannot resolve regarding site history, that is where Wikispace comes in. They are an email away and respond almost immediately to any problems.
 * //__Through Wikispace Protection__//**

My personal note to you is that in the couple of years that I have used Wikispace with groups of students, I have never had anyone post anything inappropriate or ruin a students' work. This site belongs to the students, it is their baby of sorts. Because of that they are proud and will play police on their own if someone is harming another student's work. (not only that, I will be able to see who is doing the harm) Wikispace has always been a pleasant extension of the classroom.
 * //__My Personal Note to You__//**

Also let me say that Wikispace is NOT a social networking site. Students cannot communicate with each other in a private setting. They can notify me of things through a tab and they can post discussions or messages on our group discussion board. They will not be using pictures or personal information about themselves and they do not give personal information to even create an account. In other words, there is no way anyone can know who they are through this website. It is for the exchange of work, not for the exchange of relationships and to my knowledge has never been used for that purpose. If there is an exchange of personal information, this can be viewed on the discussions tab and then rectified. Students are ALWAYS encouraged at school to be very careful when they are on the internet.