The
following statement applies to the Literacy Matters website, developed
by Education Development Center, Inc. (EDC), through its Center
for Family, School, and Community. EDC is committed to protecting
the privacy and security of its online visitors and to providing
a safe environment for everyone.
PERSONALLY
IDENTIFIABLE INFORMATION
Collection of Information
EDC
only collects personally identifiable information from our visitors
13 years or older. Personally identifiable information includes
first and last name, home address, email address, or telephone
number. EDC does not collect personally identifiable information
from children under the age of 13 without first obtaining verifiable
parental consent, unless EDC only uses this information to (1)
obtain parental consent or provide parents with notice of EDC's
privacy practices; (2) respond directly on a one-time basis to
a child's specific request; (3) respond more than once to a child's
specific request along with providing parental notice; (4) protect
the safety of a child; or (5) comply with legal requirements.
EDC's consent and notification process gives parents the ability
to let EDC know if they do not want us to make further use of
the personally identifiable information we have collected from
their child.
EDC
may request personally identifiable information from children
in connection with our forums, content submissions, or classroom
activities so that we can answer questions or requests. Unless
EDC indicates otherwise, personally identifiable information from
children under the age of 13 will be used by EDC for internal
purposes and will not be sold or otherwise transferred to advertisers
or anyone else.
Posting
of Information
It
is EDC's policy never to post on the Literacy Matters website
any personally identifiable information other than a child's first
name, first initial of last name, state, and age or grade.
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FOR
KIDS
Please
do not ever give out your full name, email address, home address,
telephone number or any other personal information that would
enable someone to contact you either online or offline unless
you first ask your parent or guardian for permission to do this.
The EDC Literacy Matters Website may ask you for your first name
and email address along with your parents' email address. We do
this so that we can contact your parents to let them know that
you have communicated with us and that we have collected this
information from you.
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FOR
PARENTS
There are many activities on the EDC Literacy Matters website
that children can participate in and enjoy without having to share
personally identifiable information. In the event we do wish to
collect or use a child's personally identifiable information,
we will notify you to obtain verifiable parental consent. Parents
can always request to review or have deleted their child's personally
identifiable information from EDC's records and refuse to permit
further use of a child's information.
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FOR
TEACHERS
There
are many activities on the EDC Literacy Matters website that are
available to teachers to enable them to enhance their classroom
and student activities. In order for EDC to be able to customize
these activities for individual teacher's use, EDC will collect
personally identifiable information from teachers and use this
personally identifiable information to tailor the content to teachers'
specific needs. Teachers can then provide a password to their
students so students can publish materials and do other activities
online in connection with their classroom. EDC will only enable
such passwords with the verifiable consent provided by teachers.
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WHAT
ARE COOKIES AND HOW DOES EDC USE THEM?
Cookies
are pieces of information that a website sends to your computer
while you are viewing the website. These pieces of information
allow the website to remember important information that will
make your visit to that site more useful. You can choose to have
your computer warn you each time a cookie is being sent, or you
can choose to turn off all cookies. You do this through your browser
(like Netscape Navigator or Internet Explorer) settings. Look
at your browser's Help menu to learn the correct way to modify
your cookies. If you turn cookies off, you won't have access to
many EDC features that make your Web experience more efficient
- like the features mentioned above—and some of our services
will not function properly.
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USE
OF IP ADDRESSES
We
collect IP addresses to obtain aggregate information on the use
of the EDC Literacy Matters website. An IP address is a number
assigned to your computer by a Web server when you're on the Web.
When you are on our site, we have a back-end server that logs
your computer's IP address. We only use the information we find
out from tracking IP addresses in the aggregate, such as how many
users entered a specific area of our site. EDC does not use IP
addresses to identify an individual user. However, EDC may use
this information to identify a user if we feel there are, or may
be, safety and/or security issues, or to comply with legal requirements.
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LINKS
TO OTHER SITES
Visitors
to the EDC Literacy Matters website will find links to other sites,
such as Scholastic.com, whose content we believe will be of interest.
In many cases, the links represent cooperative projects established
with the organizations connected with these sites. Please note
that EDC does not monitor or control the content that appears
on these sites and that the content may be constantly changing.
We recommend that children check with their parents or teachers
before linking to any new site. We encourage all visitors to the
Literacy Matters website to read the privacy policies of all linked
sites before navigating through them.
We
hope that you enjoy exploring the Literacy Matters website.
The
Literacy Matters Website is owned and operated by Education Development
Center, Inc., 55 Chapel Street, Newton, MA 02458. Judith Zorfass,
Lead Developer, can be reached by telephone at 617-618-2174 or
by email at jzorfass@edc.org.
If
you have any questions about our privacy policy or practices,
or if you wish to amend, update, or verify the information on
file, or notify us that you want your information deleted from
our files, please contact us at the above address.
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GETNETWISE
GetNetWise
is an online resource that provides information and tools that
parents and teachers can use to guide children to a safe online
experience. You can access this content by going to: www.getnetwise.org/.
This initiative is part of an industry effort to create an online
environment where adults feel empowered with tools, information,
and resources to safeguard children on line.
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SECURITY
EDC
ensures that all information, personally and non-personally identifiable,
that it receives via the Internet is secure against unauthorized
access. This information is kept in a safe and secure system isolated
from direct connection to the Internet. This means that no eyes,
other than ours, will ever see the information that our visitors
send to us, unless we indicate otherwise.
As
you can see, to join a discussion we request that students enter
their first name and last initial only; we ask them not to provide
their email addresses or any other identifying information.
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