With the continual influx of digital applications available to support teaching and learning experiences in a variety of contexts and at all levels, educators have to be committed to providing a safe environment that protects students. One aspect of that protection is ensuring the privacy of student data when using those applications. It’s challenging to balance the freedom of teachers to select the best digital resource to engage student learning while simultaneously protecting student data.
To facilitate this effort, school districts participate in often complex processes to vet learning applications. A comprehensive vetting process typically involves reviewing an application’s data privacy policy to document that it’s use meets state and federal laws, determining if the application works technically within the district’s digital ecosystem, evaluating the academic efficacy of the application by noting alignment to learning standards to benefit student performance, and suggesting strategies for the use of the application for instruction. This process can be overwhelming for many districts grappling with today’s teaching and learning challenges and expectations.
How 1EdTech Can Help
1EdTech assists the above process by vetting applications and certifying them for data privacy utilizing a community developed open rubric as part of its TrustEd AppsTM program. The rubric includes four key areas for evaluation including the following: Data Collected, Security, Third-party Data Sharing, and Advertising. The certification information is available to the public via the 1EdTech Certified Product Directory and recognized by the TrustEd Apps Seal of Data Privacy Certification. The detailed vetting results (for approximately 8000 applications) are available to 1EdTech members who have joined this nonprofit organization to work collaboratively among K-12, Higher Education Institutions, and EdTech suppliers to develop open interoperability and data privacy standards. What differentiates the vetting process at 1EdTech is that the team connects with each edtech supplier to show them how to make improvements to their data privacy policy and practices in order to earn the TrustEd Apps Seal, as districts and teachers want to use those applications with their students but require that additional verification.
Join the 1EdTech Community
By joining 1EdTech, educational institutions also have access to the TrustEd Apps Dashboard. This dashboard can be used by a district to signify which applications are preferred, approved, or denied for use, to provide technical and instructional information to teachers about the use of an application, and to enable teachers to seamlessly suggest an application to be reviewed for use in the classroom. The development of the TrustEd Apps Dashboard was requested by district leaders who found themselves overwhelmed with the process of vetting and reviewing applications and asked for teachers to be provided access to the detailed vetting results of applications.
To find out more information about TrustEd Apps, you can visit www.TrustEdApps.org, and you can join 1EdTech by visiting www1edtech.org/join and completing the online membership application.
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