Karl wonders if we shouldn’t get rid of school Acceptable Use Policy statements (“So are they really UUP’s — Unacceptable Use Policies?”) and replace them with RUP’s – Responsible Use Policies.

Instead of making a list of all the things you can’t do with technology and on the Internet, what if we made a list of all the things that not only can you do, but you should do? What if students and staff had to sign an agreement that stated these are all the ways that a responsible student or staff member should be using technology and the Internet if they are to be a functional, literate, contributing member of society?

This makes a whole lot of sense, especially considering how we generally use AUPs.

In most of our schools, teachers and kids (or their parents) sign the AUP at the beginning of the year. And then everyone promptly forgets about it.

Until someone does something a teacher or administrator thinks is a violation at which point we haul out the rules again to support penalizing the offender.

RUP’s, on the other hand, would need to be interwoven throughout the curriculum as well as any technology-assisted classroom activity.

The rules would become an instructional tool instead of an administrative baseball bat.

Now, can we also make some similar revisions to the SR&R’s (Student Rights and Responsibilities) here in the overly-large school district.

This is another, broader set of rules, trotted out at the start of the school year and then forgotten until a student does something we don’t like, with far more “responsibilities” (re: UUP’s) than rights.