Web Tools We Use

At Palisades your child has the opportunity to utilize many online tools that can enhance their learning experience.  While these online tools can never replace the classroom teacher or the face to face interactions of students with their peers, they can engage students in ways that the traditional classroom setting cannot.  Online websites and tools can take students virtually out of the classroom to explore places they may never get to see in person.  Sometimes all it takes is that online visual depiction or audio description of something to help a student reach that "aha" moment.  Online resources can allow learners to repeat something they may have missed in the classroom, or replay something until they understand a concept.

Students also have the opportunity to participate in some online collaborative projects with other students and their teachers. When students are able to safely share their ideas with an audience broader than just our classroom, often they can discover their voice and become even more motivated to learn, communicate, and share their ideas effectively with others.  These collaborative experiences support Palisades’ efforts to prepare our students to become responsible digital citizens providing skills for college and the workplace. We participate in these collaborative digital projects to help our students learn through experiences the ways to safely use the Internet to share information and interact responsibly.

All sites that we use where student information may be shared follow the safety guidelines outlined in the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA) as well as the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA).  The protection and filtering measures we have in place conform to the Children’s Internet Protection Act (CIPA).  Many educational website vendors have also signed the Student Privacy Pledge which is their promise that they will both support the effective use of student information and safeguard student privacy and information security.

At Palisades we make extensive use of the Google suite of applications called Google Workspace for Education, Microsoft's Microsoft 365 Education and the desktop versions of Microsoft Office, and Instructure Canvas.  Since we use these tools regularly as an integral part of the curriculum, and since these tools do not share or collect information about our students as per their privacy policies and they comply with FERPA, it is not a requirement that we obtain parental permission to use them with students.  If you choose to opt your child out of the use of web tools, these aforementioned applications are exempt from the option to opt out.

Palisades also uses operational software applications that contain student data such as our student information system, transportation system, nursing software, emergency management software, district management software, cafeteria system, etc..  These systems are all FERPA and COPPA compliant and in addition they are vetted for their data privacy and protection procedures as it relates to data governance.

We wish to use many different digital tools including but not limited to e-mail, blogs, wikis, subject area reference sites, online videos, video conferencing and collaboration websites. To protect student privacy and ensure safety throughout the use of these online tools:

1. The tools we use will be filtered for questionable content to the best of our ability and can be monitored if a situation requires it.

2. Students will be taught about Internet safety and the types of information that should or should not be shared while using these tools.

3. Video conferencing would be open only to the parties involved and not permanently posted unless it's part of a class project and all students depicted in the video have parental permission.

4. Sites that any student information is shared with will be vetted for COPPA and FERPA compliance.

A listing of some of the sites we use along with links to their privacy policies can be viewed below.  This document is, and will continue to be, a dynamic list as new and valuable sites are discovered by our teachers.  Some of these sites do not require student accounts and as such do not collect any information about students, but they are listed for your information.  If a privacy policy looks questionable to you, it's more than likely that we make use of that site for some classroom activities but no student information is shared with the site.