As I have done in the past, this year I formed a student committee to work with me in rewriting some of my classroom policies. This year, I decided that my technology policy, even though only a few years old, needed to be amended, updated, and changed in various ways. With the help of my student committee Nicole Cammarota, Meghan McCallister, Lauren Graham, and Matthew Shoppas, we met once in person and then edited a shared Google Doc. After some editing on my part, this is what I ended up with:
Technology Policy
Please mute your cell phone BEFORE entering the classroom. If your cell phone goes off more than once while class is in a session, you will be asked to leave. I fully encourage whatever technology suites your learning style, accommodations, or interests whether they are laptops, tablets, apps on smart phones, etc, as long as they do not distract from our purpose in the classroom. Paper is totally fine too.
With that being said, during opening and closing remarks in class focus should be away from technology and on discussing our goals and outcomes for the day. Please remove all ear buds before entering class and keep them removed until you leave the room at the end of class.
In my classes, I have an expectation students will have access to email and computers in general. All of your work will be submitted to via your BCC Gmail account and returned, with annotated comments, via Google Drive. Given there are public and school libraries, the ILRC, coffee shops, etc, students need to budget their time better; I do not see any excuse for having “no access” to email outside of the classroom.
Students are expected to check their BCC Gmail account on a regular basis. I do not accept the excuse, “I didn't check my email for two weeks” as a valid problem. Digital correspondence should be written using proper grammar and form. I will not reply to emails filled with texting speak (2, u, 4, lol, j/k) or poor grammar and/or misspellings.
Please include a subject and "sign" your email with your name, student ID number, and course section. If you miss class, please check the syllabus for information about assignments, due dates, and outcomes from class. Do not email the professor and ask “did we do anything in class today?” or any variations on that theme.