Acceptable Use Policy or Responsible Use Policy or Empowered Use Policy?

One of my grad school assignments this week was to explore the concept of acceptable use policies (AUPs). As I was conducting my research, I came across several resources that challenged the title and contents of an AUP. The article "Rethinking Acceptable Use Policies to Enable Digital Learning: A Guide for School Districts" explains that some schools are changing the perspective on AUPs by framing them as "responsible use policies." A responsible use policy focuses on the positive - what students should do with technology instead of what they should not do. School districts that adopt this philosophy focus on helping students become responsible users of technology through specific experiences. To me this is like teaching digital citizenship. Digital citizenship encompasses teaching students more than how to protect themselves from threats but also important skills such as how to evaluate content to avoid the pitfall of misinformation. 

The authors of the article "Moving From 'Acceptable' to 'Responsible' Use in a Web 2.0 World" advocate for a new philosophy to the traditional AUP that empowers students to use technology in a responsible and healthy manner. It occured to me that this type of philosophy change also reflects changes being made to discipline and classroom management (at least in Montana) as a result of the Positive Behavioral Interventions and Supports (PBIS) philosophy. As "SWPBIS for Beginners" indicates, schools that implement PBIS "focus on three to five behavioral expectations that are positively stated and easy to remember. In other words, rather than telling students what not to do, the school will focus on the preferred behaviors." PBIS focuses on not overwhelming students with "rules" and having constant expectations throughout an entire school instead of from classroom to classroom. This got me thinking that couldn't we combine this concept of positive expectations to have one guideline of expectations for students? Really, if technology is another tool for learning, should it have a separate document with separate expectations? 

Another resource I came across furthers the idea of a Responsible Use Policy and questions whether we should call it an "Empowered Use Policy." It encourages students to "do awesome things" and "amaze us." I love this! 

Regardless of what you call it, do you think the philosophies of AUPs should change to be more positive and empower students to use technology in a responsible and healthy manner that creates amazing results?

Dig Deeper: 

• Rethinking Acceptable Use Policies to Enable Digital Learning: A Guide for School Districts 
• Moving From 'Acceptable' to 'Responsible' Use in a Web 2.0 World 
• PBIS
• Instead of an AUP, how about an EUP?
• AUP to RUP Livebinder
• Rethinking AUPs