‘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

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.