Students in my
‘Teachers & Technology’ course wrote brief reflections about
blogging. Christen’s response really caught my eye. Christen is a good
student and on her way to becoming a wonderful teacher.
I truly belive that keeping a log of my work, my learning exeperience,
and tips and websites for future reference will serve as a valuable
tool for me in the future. I also enjoy having a link to my classmates’
work, as I can refer to their blogs for tips and lesson plans in the
future as well. HOWEVER, my attitude toward blogging has recently
become jaded. I was a blogger by hobby in the previous year, as were
many of my friends. We all kept in touch with our blogs, posted
opinions and personal news, pictures of ourselves with friends and
family, and so on. These were all informal, hobby blogs. Although we
always understood that they were posted on the Internet and therefore
available to the public, they were hard to find unless someone was
specifically looking, and were not accessible through a simple search
of our names. Everything changed recently when someone close to me was
featured in an article on the front page of the Washington Post.
Because she was unavailable for comment at the time the article went to
press, they searched for her weblog and quoted it. They also took
informal comments on her weblog out of context and plastered them on
the front page of the Post. This was horrifying to me. For one, because
what they chose to use was not flattering. And secondly, my personal
blog was linked to hers in her “friends” section. Therefore, my blog
was immediately available to the greater public that was now seeking
out her personal blog. This resulted in the deletion of her blog, mine,
and others. You do not realize automatically, when blogging, that
ANYONE at ANY TIME could access the material you post and use it out of
context to represent YOU! It is SO necessary to be as careful and as
cautious as possible when putting things and information on the
Internet. For this reason, based on this recent experience, I do not
think that I will have children blog in the near future. Although they
can be closely monitored, I do not want to take any risk of too much
information landing on the Internet. Even having their names linked to
a specific school or location could prove dangerous in some future
situation. With all of this said, I plan on using the blog as a
professional tool in the future, but not in my classroom. At least not
any time in the near future…
Something like this
would be a good case in point for other young people to read. Just
making young people pause and think about what they are writing and
possible consequences is a good thing. Christen said, “It is necessary
to be as careful and cautious as possible when putting things and
information on the Internet.” Careful yes, cautious maybe. Caution can
be thrown to the wind if you are trying to make a point but doing it in
such a way that will not hurt someone or be irresponsible. It’s a gray
area that we need to talk about in our classrooms.
I am surprised though that “good thinkers” like Christen think these
sites are not accessible. We educators need to talk to students about
this. I spend a lot of time with the students I work with about what
they write. I tell them they are ambassadors for themselves, their
schools, their country and even the world. I explain what that means. I
teach them to think before they write. I keep coming back to it. We
discuss other postings and try to reach conclusions in our classroom
about whether it was responsible or not. Maybe we need to delve into
this more and come up with ideas for how to get it across. It’s called
common sense and we need to figure out better ways to teach it.
I don’t agree with Christen about the risk factor. The more I
read the more I believe that the risk factor is not getting involved
with the students in discussing these issues. Young people are
not thinking down the road, for the most part. Working out solutions,
discussing responsible use and how to handle situations that come up,
talking about possibilities for blogging that would appeal to students
and just listening to them. We can’t prevent students from blogging
inappropriate things outside our classrooms. At the same time I think
we are remiss as educators if we don’t start having these conversations
in our classrooms.
I like my students using their names (first only). I believe it gives
them ownership and puts the responsiblity in their hands. My
responsibility as a teacher is to oversee what is being written on
classroom blogs and steer them in directions that make them think and
hopefully make good decisions.
