Will has made a thoughtful post, “Wall Street Journal on K-12 Classroom Blogs”. He said the bad news was the title and the good news was that the article paints a much better picture of classroom blogging than the title suggests.
I wish the WSJ were not subscription only, so I could point you to Kevin Delaney’s article, “Classroom Use Of Weblogs Raises Concerns.” Since I can’t, I thought I’d share a few quotes and my reactions and thoughts.
“FIRST GRADERS at Magnolia Elementary Elementary School used a Web log earlier this year to describe their dream playgrounds. Monkey bars were heartily endorsed, and live animals and bumper cars also made the cut.”
Just had to say what a great lead! I’m going to challenge my fifth graders to create leads like that! I think they’ll make the cut! (with a little practice, of course)
“While most agree on blogs’ value for promoting student expresssion, critical thinking and exchange, there’s no consensus on the amount of control over access and content that educators whould exercise.”
This is an area where we need to speak out more forcefully. We need to be clearer on educational use of blogs. Of coruse, we have to oversee the content and teach students to use their voices responsibly. In most cases our use of weblogs is not blogging per se. While we might like to think that true blogging can occur in our schools, I don’t think it can yet but what CAN happen is that we set the stage for students to truly realize the power of the written word. Their voice can make a difference. Weblogs give us a way to give them a writing voice that is unique and it is unlike other writing opportunities we have at our fingertips. They get to see how a learning community can develop outside of our classroom walls. They get to be an active, engaged member of that community. They have a say.
“Students in Mr. Richardson’s high-school journalism classes, for example, never turn in hard copies of their homework. They post all assignments to individual blogs. Their blogs also notify them when other students complete writing assignments, so they can read and comment on them.”
Yes! A step into the new century, a step made possible by weblogs! We need more classrooms taking steps.
Michael Lackner jump-started blogging at Magnolia Elementary in Maryland.
“But Hartford County public school officials notified them this summer that such projects appeared to fall afoul of policies regulating student communication. In particular, they were concerned that students and others could post comments to the blogs before they were reviewed by a teacher.”
Now, this gets to the heart of the concerns, especially in elementary schools. Anybody can post a comment to public blog and an inappropriate comment may slip through.
“What we want to see is a Web log where a teacher has final control, acts as a filter for any postings or comments, ” says Janey Mayo, technology coordinator for Hartford County Public Schools. “We’re trying to be very cautious with this because we’re working with kids.” School administrators want to see further research on whether blogging has educational value at the elementary-school level, but so far we haven’t found any.”
Now, I am all for the teacher overseeing the posts and comments, especially at the elementary level. We’re responsible for the content we’re using to teach. We must teach responsible use of the Internet. Our kids are already surfing the Internet outside of our classrooms. Just like we teach them to report obscene scribblings they may see on our school bathroom walls, to not accept rides with strangers, to report suspicious behavior in our schools, on our buses and our playgrounds; we can also teach them to report inappropriate comments on weblogs.
I have been using weblogs with students for 3 years and in that time I have only had one inappropriate comment and that was at the university level, not the elementary level. It just makes sense to make it a part of our teaching to advise them about the possible downsides of technology. They can learn to say NO, this is not appropriate. They can take a “stand tall in the world” type of attitude. I truly believe they will respond in appropriate ways. We need to challenge our students to use their voices in thoughtful, persuasive ways. Teach them the importance of reading from various sources and lead them to see how all this can help them write in ways that will make a difference. They will rise to the occasion. As I stated in the article:
“It’s worth taking that risk of being exposed to inappropriate content on the Web, says Anne Davis, an information systems training specialist at Georgia State University and former elementary school teacher.”
And finally, in regards to research about weblogs, Will states it well.
“The issues surrounding blogging and related technology in the classroom are “pretty much uncharted, ” says Will Richardson, an educational-blogging advocate and supervisor of instructional technology and communications at Hunterdon Central Regional HighSchool in Flemington, N.J.”
I say let’s put blogs back in the hands of responsible instructional technology specialists like Michael Lackner. This is cutting-edge technology and we need to be in the forefront of piloting it so we can prove that the potential and possibilities of weblogs in our classroom will be realized. It’s way past time to reconsider our methodology and our content and not just step, but leap into the new century.
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