Dear SUA Community,
It is wonderful to have the students back on campus with their laughter and conversations filling the hallways! Even just these few days back on campus has brought a sense of normalcy and connection that is extremely beneficial for our students. Thank you for your patience as we have navigated some unusual weather circumstances.
A change in roles that I am pleased to share with you is that Laura Bubnick officially serves as the Chief Technology Resource Officer as of January 1. Laura is in her third year at SUA working with educational technology and curriculum development after 12 years of experience serving as a technology coach and director in several districts. Her technical expertise with infrastructure and systems is complemented by a strong background in curriculum. This combination of skill sets makes Laura uniquely qualified for this position. She is committed to SUA and makes certain that all members of our institution have the technology support that they need to advance the mission of the school.
Laura and her IT team have already made several impressive advancements to make our technology infrastructure more robust, one of which is the implementation of GoGuardian. As much as technology creates tremendous learning opportunities, we all know it has the potential for distraction and safety concerns for our students. SUA adopted GoGuardian as an upgrade to a prior system, LanSchool. GoGuardian filters out inappropriate, distracting, and harmful online content. It is a teaching/learning tool for teachers, as they are able to view their students’ screens in the classroom so they can have real-time insights into their students’ progress and engagement. In addition, it has sophisticated features allowing teachers to differentiate instruction, such as pushing out different online resources to individual students and groups.
We also want to explain the content-monitoring feature of GoGuardian and how it enhances student safety. GoGuardian continuously monitors students’ online activity on their SUA laptop or student email to flag potentially unsafe behaviors and warning signs of self-harm. Then, if there are concerns, these are brought to the attention of the appropriate school personnel for inquiry and support. GoGuardian is NOT snooping for online shopping habits or anything like that at all; it is only looking for warning signs of unsafe student behaviors and self-harm. Since it relies on monitoring for “key words,” there is the possibility of false positives in situations that are perfectly safe and acceptable once the context is understood. We are lucky to have the expertise of our Counseling Department to have conversations with students and parents if there is ever a concern.
The students are aware of the GoGuardian application since the installation on their laptops has happened over the last several weeks of school. I will be taking more time in this week’s Sunday Message to students to explain the monitoring feature so that it is understood as the safety tool that it is. If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to reach out to Laura or me.
Let’s pray for dry, snow-free days ahead.
Go Bulldogs!
Kathy