Responsible Use Policy made fun for my #BHSwired students! Have students create RUP hashtags!

Today I was asked to come meet with some Brenham High School foreign language students to discuss the BISD Responsible Use Policy.  I have given the RUP talk a hundred times and let's face it... IT'S SO BORING!  I needed a quick new activity that wouldn't take a lot of class time, but that would involve the students in the discussion.

After crowsourcing Twitter a little bit (thank you all for your ideas!) and mulling it over for a few days, I finally decided to have the kids come up with hashtags for our policy statements.  It was a HUGE success and the kids actually participated!  {GASP!}  Here's what I did...

1. I printed our policy statements in large font and cut them all apart to place inside a basket.
2. In class, I put the kids in groups of 4 and had each group pick a policy statement from the basket.
3. I gave the groups 3 minutes (which I later adjusted to 2 minutes) to discuss their policy statement and come up with a hashtag to sum it up.
4. Each group reported back to the whole class about their statement and their hashtag.

Here are some of my favorites...

Students shall not send post, or possess electronic messages that are abusive, obscene, sexually oriented, threatening, harassing, damaging to another’s reputation, or illegal, including cyber-bullying and “sexting.”

Students shall not use e-mail or Web sites to engage in or encourage illegal behavior or threaten school safety.

 System users will strictly adhere to copyright laws, including Fair Use Guidelines.

Students shall not attempt to alter, destroy, or disable district technology resources including but not limited to computers and related equipment, district data, the data of others, or other networks connected to the district’s system.

System users will not reveal personal information about themselves or others, such as: phone number, address, password, or username.