Why let our students blog?
I think it is important to let your students blog because allowing students to discuss in this way helps all students (shy and outgoing) to express themselves digitally and in a format less restricting than a classroom sometimes. I also think blogging allows for higher order thinking and helps with literacy.
What hazards could this pose to students?
I think it is a hazard to allow students to post without any limitations. I still have not allowed my students to blog without sites that allow me to preview the comments first and then approve them. I have not met an entire class yet that is mature enough to stay completely on task within a blog. In addition, I think using full names is a hazard and sharing any security information.
What safeguards can be utilized?
I think it is important for teachers to show examples of good blogging and make sure to keep personal information off blogs as well as full names. I also am a huge advocate of edublogs now. We used a different blog site in my district, but I am using this one now. Like the other one I used, it allows you to approve comments and I think that is important for adolescents.
My district?
My district blocks blogger.com and well as gmail. Our district has accounts with: http://classblogmeister.com/. This site is not free but allows you to approve of each comment. Our IT department is not comfortable with allowing complete freedom of speech on these sites so from my understanding, blog sites that allow teachers to approve comments first are less likely to be blocked. Edublog is not so I'm excited about that!
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2 comments:
Our district subscribes to School Fusion for class web pages/blogs. Each student picks a code name (color plus an animal), and their real identity can only be viewed by people logged into the network. It's a new feature this summer, so I am not sure how well it will work. The kids will probably get so caught up in creating clever/dirty code names, that they'll forget they were supposed to be posting.
I think that having to approve comments is a great idea. It gives some control over what is posted to make sure inappropriate comments are not posted. The lack of personal information would be important for young students.
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