How to Manage Privacy Settings
As a teacher creating a professional blog, protecting privacy isn’t just about protecting yourself but is also about being mindful of your students. As you build your site, you’ll want to ensure that you protect student privacy – this includes redacting/removing the names of teachers, students and schools and using only non-identifiable images. Keep in mind the purpose of your blog. Remember, it is not a class website meant to celebrate the students in the classroom, it is about you: your inquiry and your journey through Teacher Ed. and houses your own ideas and reflections about teaching and learning.
It is possible to do so without infringing on student’s privacy and adding to their ‘digital tattoo’. Be creative in how you take photos!
Please note that you may upload student work product and images (with appropriate permissions and/or with respect to privacy) on UBC Blogs since it is housed in Canada. If you choose to use an American housed blog or website/server, FIPPA (The Freedom of information and protection of privacy act) applies and you may not upload student work or images (EVEN if you protect privacy).
Remember, TEO advises the following:
You may include student images and/or video in a web document only if you have written permission from the student and their parents. Alternatively, you can use photographs and/or video without obtaining written permission, if such media do not show the students’ faces or any identifying information (such as names, places, images of locations, etc).
*NB: Written permission from parents of minors must follow school /school district guidelines and, as such, should be approved by the school Administrator. I recommend that this permission should be specific about the usage of the image in the TC’s professional blog – including noting if it is a ‘public’ site accessible on the internet.
When you are ready to submit and share your work, you will want to ensure your permissions are set correctly to allow people to view your blog. View the video tutorial below to learn how to change overall blog privacy settings.
If you chose to make your site open only to subscribers, you will need to add your instructor (and anyone else you wish to view your site) as a user click here to learn how to.
Also each page and post have their own ‘visibility’ permissions, click here to view a tutorial on how to create a post and change visibility settings.
For support with UBC blogs, please visit https://blogs.ubc.ca/support/
Other UBC Blog video tutorials you might be interested:
- How to create a custom menu: https://blogs.ubc.ca/blogsandbox/2016/12/21/how-to-create-a-custom-menu/
- How to create a page: https://blogs.ubc.ca/blogsandbox/2016/11/18/how-to-create-a-page/
- How to create a post: https://blogs.ubc.ca/blogsandbox/2016/10/31/how-to-create-a-post/
- How to add a user: https://blogs.ubc.ca/blogsandbox/2016/10/31/how-to-add-a-user/
- How to get started: https://blogs.ubc.ca/blogsandbox/2016/10/31/how-to-get-started/
- Embedding a Twitter Feed https://blogs.ubc.ca/blogsandbox/2015/07/21/embedding-a-twitter-feed/
- Embedding a visual link: https://blogs.ubc.ca/blogsandbox/2015/07/20/embed-a-visual-link/
- Embedding video: https://blogs.ubc.ca/blogsandbox/2015/07/20/embedding-video/
- Exporting your website: https://blogs.ubc.ca/blogsandbox/2015/07/14/downloading-your-site-for-back-up-andor-export/
For more tools and technologies to use in teacher education, please visit Scarfe Digital Sandbox.