My Big Campus

Teachers speak out on why My Big Campus is safe

The My Big Campus team regularly hosts training events for educators. The training is designed to give people the skills and knowledge they need to go back and train fellow teachers and students on how to use My Big Campus in the classroom. 

Teachers want to be sure that My Big Campus is safe for them and their students to use. At the end of a recent training session in Indianapolis, Indiana, teachers discussed the safety features of My Big Campus. Here are a few of the highlights of that discussion:

• MBC provides us with a springboard to teach students about proper social networking so that when they are using their Facebook and other accounts, they have some sort of guidance! Unfortunately, many of my third grade students have FB accounts that are obviously not monitored closely by their parents. This just gives me a concrete way to show them that networking can be fun without all of the "junk" and drama!
• Words of concern are screened, flagged and checked. Students who abuse this system can be restricted, and therefore, held accountable. 
• I love that I have a safe place to communicate with my students outside of the classroom. 
• When I train, I always reference an onion. Not the stinky part, I mean the layers. There is a building wall, a district wall, and the the super-duper Lightspeed wall.
• We have a few people who are really advocating for us to open up everything to our students - Facebook, YouTube, etc. I think this would be a huge mistake and doesn't consider the best interests of our students. MBC allows them to receive the educational benefit of those tools without exposure to the bad. How can you argue against that?! 
• Mistakes can turn into lessons learned...
• What we like about MBC is the safe YouTube access. We love how MBC strips away all the superfluous content and inappropriate comments.
• I like the fact that MBC seems to be very proactive in making sure that this is a safe environment for our students. With so many worries about not only inappropriate web content, but cyber bullying as well, it's nice to know the protection is there. 

I was thrilled to read their comments, because I knew these teachers truly understood why I created My Big Campus. Do you have a story about online safety to share? Let me know in the comments.

How our Community Helps Keep My Big Campus Safe

We want My Big Campus to be a safe place for students to socialize in an appropriately educational context. As such, we use various methods to intercept certain types of content that may be unsuitable for a K-12 environment.

Occasionally, however, inappropriate content can slip past our automatic and manual reviews. That's where our community can help.

If you see a wall post, comment, discussion or library item that you feel should be reported to your school administrators and My Big Campus staff, click the Report Abuse button.

Here are some of the things administrators and staff want to know about:

• Harassment
• Bullying
• Profanity (swearing or cussing)
• Threats
• Drinking or drug abuse
• Talk of suicide or self harm
• Gang activity
• Criminal behavior
• Inappropriate socializing between adults and students, or between older students and younger students
• Unsafe situations (abuse or neglect)
• Broken links or missing videos in the Resource Library
• Anything else you see that administrators and staff should know about

Using the Report Abuse button is not the same as tattling or snitching. When a person "acts out," it's often because they just need an adult to help them understand how to behave safely and appropriately on line. Other times, a person might appear to be in danger of being hurt, or hurting themselves, and needs someone to make sure unsafe situations are investigated and resolved. Finally, it can be a quick way to let MBC staff know there is a technical problem.

There are only a few cases where it is not appropriate to use the Report Abuse button:

• As a prank or practical joke
• When you are trying to reply to a post. Use the Comment button instead.

On My Big Campus, good citizenship means being accountable for your actions. Use the Report Abuse button responsibly: if something seems wrong, let us know.