May 14 2008
Podcasting Permission Forms
Hi,
I am keen to get going further on the podcasting and have tried recording with a few students.
I am wondering about the issues about posting and parent permission. Do we need to get permission from the parents as we do for posting things on the webpage? If so, is there a form that I might be able to look at as a sample?
Cheryl
Hi Cheryl,
Like all schools in our board, we start the year off making sure our students’ parents have signed the following documents from the OCDSB:
- Acceptable Use of Computers and Internet/Intranet Technology Agreement
- School Web Site Permission Form
- Media Permission Form
These forms can be found on the board site. Our school has included them in the student agenda and made these forms available online.
Anyway, to get to your question, we don’t use a consent form specific to podcasting and blogging. In our opinion, podcasting and blogging is within the realm of computer use. However, we do make a point of advertising what we are up to through newsletters, emails and notes/stickers in agendas. Here’s a newsletter we sent out early this school year about collaborating with students from around the world.
For our regular podcasts and blog entries, we make a point of only using the kids’ first names on blogs, websites and podcasts. We also avoid posting any video or photos of their faces.
In the case of the article we wrote for ETFO’s Voice magazine and a video documentary Carleton University journalism students was made about the kids, we did contact the families for permission. We’ve been fortunate that all of our students’ families have agreed to participate.
We’ve found that it really helps to continually email parents whenever a new show comes out. Nothing sells what we’re doing better than parents getting to hear their kids voices at home or at work on their computers. I have to admit that having a few seasons under our belts makes selling the podcast to a brand new batch of students much easier.
