PURPOSE

St. Gregory the Great Catholic School recognizes technology as a valuable educational tool. The administration and faculty are committed to teaching students to work and learn effectively with technology, with particular emphasis on responsible and ethical use of technological resources. The policy outlined below applies to all technology use, including but not limited to Internet use.

GOAL

The school’s goal is to prepare students for life in an electronic, global community. To this end, the school will:

• Provide a variety of technology based learning tools
• Teach technology skills
• Integrate technology with curriculum

• Encourage critical thinking and problem solving skills
• Encourage responsible and ethical practices

The St. Gregory the Great Catholic School Acceptable Use Policy for Technology contains two components; Principles of Use, which presents the terms under which one accesses the network and/or uses computer equipment; Policies & Procedures , which addresses specific actions both required and prohibited.

PRINCIPLES OF USE

1. Any student accessing the St. Gregory the Great Catholic School Network (a “user”) has no expectation of privacy. Any and all interactions by students with computers (any website visited, e-mail sent or received, any document composed, whether saved or not, any keystroke made) may be observed as it is occurring or reviewed at a later time.
2. Use of computers at St. Gregory the Great Catholic School is a privilege, not a right. This privilege may be modified, suspended, or revoked if it is abused. There may be further consequences to classroom performance and/or grades if computer privileges are changed. These consequences are the sole responsibility of the student.
3. Users are to respect the rights and intellectual property of others. All sources obtained by the student must be cited. Failure to do so results in plagiarism and invites the consequences for cheating as stated in the STGGCS Handbook.
4. Student use of Internet is highly restricted, and at the sole discretion of the teacher. Students will be prohibited from “surfing the net” independently.
5. No student will be penalized for issues that occur as a result of innocent activity, providing the student notifies the teacher immediately or before the activity is otherwise discovered.

POLICIES & PROCEDURES

While the following Policies & Procedures address specific required and prohibited actions, it is reasonable to state that no listing can be complete, because no policy can anticipate every situation that could be encountered. Students, who lack maturity to exercise responsible behavior that respects the online safety of the user and safety of the overall network, will have their access to school technological resources revoked.

1. Students must login/logout on the computer using their own assigned, valid login.
2. Use of computers at St. Gregory the Great Catholic School is specifically for educational purposes. Communication using messaging systems including, but not limited to web-based e-mail programs (e.g. Yahoo and Hotmail); and “instant messaging” (e.g. Aim, MSN, Yahoo) on the computer or any other electronic device is prohibited.
3. Access to and use of any social networking systems including, but not limited to myspace, facebook, twitter is prohibited.
4. Use of Laptop/Nook/Kindle/iPad/Android Tablet devices is restricted to approved access and use as determined by the administration and teachers.
5. Students are not to plagiarize content and may not present the work of another unless that work is cited.

St. Gregory the Great Catholic School may add and/or amend the rules stated in the Acceptable Use Policy for Technology as needed.