Wired
Protecting E-mail Privacy

Dear Web Editor,

Is employee e-mail and other personal information on a school district's network protected from search or review by the district?

Don Mack
Technology teacher
Laramie, Wyoming

Increasingly, we spend more and more time communicating with our colleagues and friends and planning our lives while at work, using e-mail and other digital network services provided by our employers. We generally use these tools as if they were private and secure. What you need to know is that e-mail can be retrieved, online chat and other messaging tools can be recorded, and keystrokes can be logged.

But to what extent does your employer have the right to monitor your communications, and do you have any privacy rights? The short answer is, it all depends on your school district's policy on network usage, often referred to as an "Acceptable Use Policy" or "AUP." Most AUPs contain provisions that allow employers to monitor e-mail and other digital communications. Many AUPs also explicitly state that users don't have any privacy rights in their communications.

Potential liability is one of the leading reasons employers seek to monitor employee communications. This is a legitimate concern, especially in districts that permit employees' personal use of district-provided electronic tools.

E-mail messages, including deleted e-mail, are discoverable in a lawsuit. Because employers are exposed to liability in many ways, districts often believe they have little choice but to monitor school employees' use of district-provided electronic tools.

The Electronic Communications Privacy Act (ECPA), a 1986 amendment to the Federal Wiretap Act, broadly prohibits intentional interception of electronic communications, including e-mail. But the ECPA has so many exceptions that it offers employees little protection from employer monitoring.

For example, under the exceptions in the statute, network providers-- including employers--can intercept electronic communications to ensure the proper functioning of the system, to protect the provider's rights or property, or with prior consent from a user. Consequently, the ECPA isn't a substantial obstacle to employers who want to monitor their own networks.

Given these loopholes, some local Associations have attempted to bargain privacy protections for employees into their collective bargaining agreements or, in non bargaining states, into the AUP. To date, these efforts have produced mixed results.

In the end, the best advice is if you want something to be private, don't use your employer's network. Period.

Quick Tip
Tired of finding your e-mail account clogged with spam--those annoying unsolicited e-mails you get from people or businesses? One way to protect yourself from electronic junk mail is to add a few extra characters to your e-mail address whenever you visit a Website that asks for it.

For example, if your e-mail address is john@doe.com, tell a newsgroup that your address is john@REMOVE.doe.com. A list administrator may notice that your e-mail address is incorrect, but an automated e-mail address collector will never know.

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Techno Tips

Online Dictionary
The Website www.dictionary.com is my favorite. At the top of the site, you type a word into a search box, then select whether you want to search for the word in the dictionary or the thesaurus. The dictionary and thesaurus are extensive and could make excellent references and/or replacements for bound copies.

Amie Gruzs
High school teacher
Westerville, Ohio

Student Art
The site www.artsonia.com is much more than a place to showcase student artwork. You can visit this site to find art lessons, comment on your favorite piece of art, nominate your budding artist for "Student Artist of the Month," and purchase items that feature student artwork. The site also features artwork from 101 different countries.

As part of a project on teamwork, my class held an art competition to design artwork that embodied what we believed about our class team. We had Artsonia print T-shirts for us that featured the student design. All the entries that did not win also appeared on this site.

Betsy Norris
Sixth-grade English teacher Shelbyville, Tennessee

Teaching Compound Words
To summarize a class lesson about compound words, I made several Microsoft® PowerPoint® slides that show two words written together to form a new word. Students read the slides together on our classroom's large screen monitor. Students also can use the slides for independent practice.

I extended the lesson with two online games: a compound words drag and drop game located at www.mrsmcgowan.com/quiz/compoundwords.htm and a multiple-choice activity at www.mrsmcgowan.com/quiz/compoundwords1.htm. My first graders access the webpages from our class Website.

Marci McGowan
First-grade teacher
Spring Lake, New Jersey

Editor's Pick

European Voyages of Exploration

During the 15th and 16th centuries, seafaring countries of Europe expanded their influence in the world through exploration--Portugal and Spain led the way. A University of Calgary tutorial introduces students to these two pioneering nations, their motivations, their actions, and the inevitable consequences of their colonization. The tutorial examines the geographical, technological, economic, political, and cultural patterns of the era. Go to www.ucalgary.ca/applied_history/tutor/eurvoya/.