Read this article, Its great.
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| Great Website and link to FERPA article |
FERPA is one of the most misunderstood regulations in education. It is commonly assumed that FERPA requires all student coursework to be kept private at all times, and thus prevents the use of social media in the classroom, but this is wrong. FERPA does not prevent instructors from assigning students to create public content as part of their course requirements. If it did, then video documentaries produced in a communications class and shown on TV or the Web, or public art shows of student work from an art class, would be illegal. As one higher education lawyer put it:
FERPA cannot be interpreted as building a total and complete wall between the school and the community. We would have really bad schools if that happened and very disengaged students. This is a good example of where the lawyers can’t get in the way of the learning. Podcasting is a fabulous learning tool. Digital storytelling, amazing. I love Voicethread, as do thousands of educators around the country. Sharing is an important part of learning and the ability to share has increased exponentially in the past couple decades. Some students right here in Kentucky are sharing with students in Brazil every day, for instance. FERPA cannot be extended to prohibit all of this sharing.” (Bathon, 2009) Go to article
