When researching about the uses and abuses of blogs I really found the link to Electronic Frontier Foundation interesting. When I first started reading, I was thinking about using this in classes to give students an understanding of the material that may be considered appropriate to blog about. Then as I read further, I found the material supportive of the first amendment rights but it seemed to condone making editorial comments about students, teachers and schools and although it did offer warning, it seemed more like a guide to how much could be written and still be protected. It seemed a little too much like a “how to” manual for students who want to know how much can be said and done while still being protected. So while I think the content is good information for teachers and administrators, I wouldn’t use it in the classroom (as a link for additional reading) just to introduce blogging to students.
I feel an even better way to approach my school district administrators to ease control over blogs and social networking (even Google Docs falls under social networking in our district) would be to introduce the 2007 tech.blorge blog post on school – boards’ reluctance to open up such access by David Cassel. (I would like to see some new numbers posted concerning these restrictions – I’ll bet they haven’t changed very much). I also found Cassel’s comments on the double standard interesting – stating that over 35% of districts report that 90% of their staff members are already participating in social networking outside of their school day.
Finally, I think that I need to subscribe my principle and district administer to the RSS feeds of David Warlick. His simple posts (May 2006 and December 2005) are direct and to the point concerning schools turning away from the technology due to the fear. His 2005 post is a perfect example – I wonder how far we’ve actually come as an educational community. I would tend to believe that there are many educators attempting to introduce more of these technologies into the classroom every week.
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Thank you for the tech.blorge link. I didn't realize how many schools have actually policies reguarding specific internet use. It makes me think our school district is behind on this. I would be interested in finding more places that share the perspective of tech.blorge.
ReplyDeleteI completely agree with getting administrators and school board members to work with blogs and online access. Our school district is ultra conservative and our parents would hate to have students putting stuff onto the internet. One thing that I do is send a message using Infinite Campus that explains the endeavours that were are undertaking. I tell them to email or call me if they have any worries and after my first attempt in two different classes, no parents responded to me. Now I ask the question, how many of them actually check the online media where I was sending out the message?
ReplyDeleteYou are spot on! You don't read a report in the local newspaper or hear one on the nightly news that discusses the multitude of safe and productive communications that take place using the web, instead you only hear of the rare but tragic misuse or exploitation one individual was involved in. This then shades all the opinions of those folks who are not aware of all the possible and ongoing productive uses.
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