Welcome to Evaluating Online Tools for the Classroom! In this course, we’ll explore choosing the right online tools for your students to use to make media, a key part of any media project. Now, many of us are familiar with creating rubrics and identifying learning objectives, but we might not think of “online tool analyst” as part of our job description. Spoiler alert: It is! In this course, we’ll look at how to select the tools to have students use throughout a media project and how to safeguard student privacy when working digitally. 

Why take this course?

• You want to learn more about how to protect student privacy online, including federal laws related to online safety. 
• You are looking for a solid list of online tools as a jumping off point as you plan an audio, video or image-based media project. 
• You want practical suggestions for how to determine if an online tool will work for your students and align with your district rules and guidelines.    
• You’re interested in earning the Evaluating Online Tools for Classroom Use micro-credential.

More About This Course

This course is divided into lessons that are a combination of text, images, videos and other interactive elements. You will also be asked to complete one assignment: evaluate the terms of service of 1-3 online tools for student media use. 

Course instructors will provide feedback on your assignment designed to help you improve your practice. Your instructors' recommendations will align with the “Sharing” KQED media literacy competency. Exemplary media literacy educators can demonstrate the following with regards to participation in online spaces and sharing media:

1. Ability to publish media on a variety of online platforms with special attention to the safety and privacy of students.
   1. Demonstrate understanding of federal rules and regulations regarding student privacy online and how they apply to online products and services used in your learning environment. This includes the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA) and the Children’s Online Privacy and Protection Act (COPPA).
   2. Critically evaluate the Terms of Service agreements for the platforms you and your students are using, especially with regards to issues of privacy, ownership of content posted, and what ways the media may be used by the platform or third parties. 
   3. Clearly communicate, model and uphold a code of conduct for student use of online resources and platforms that promotes a positive school culture and supports safe and responsible technology use.
   4. As an educator, give appropriate credit to creators whose work you have referenced and/or used for your own media. Cite or acknowledge the outputs of GenAI tools when used - this includes direct quotations and paraphrasing, as well as calling out how the tool was used for tasks like editing, translating, idea generation, and data processing. 

In addition to our feedback, other educators may view and comment on your submission, which many course participants have found helpful. We encourage you to do the same.

You can go through the course at whatever pace makes sense for you, and review anything afterwards that you might have missed. In order to receive a certificate of completion, you will need to complete all the assignments and finish the course within four weeks of starting it. If you don’t finish in time, no worries, you can always re-enroll.

Before you jump into the course, we want to remind you to OPT-IN to receive email from us so that we (your instructors!) can communicate updates to the courses and feedback on the coursework you submit. Please follow the instructions here to make sure that these settings are enabled and toggled ON.