I think that Noelene is on the right track with using LiveJournal (LJ) to improve students writing. However, she does need to address the issues regarding parents’ concerns about the public nature of the activity and the comments students receive from strangers. Perhaps, Noelene hasn’t had a discussion with her students and parents regarding the appropriate use, abilities to change security/privacy settings to prevent unwanted commentary and restricted access, online safety issues, and the option for students to use pseudonyms rather than their real names for their blogs.
Noelene could offer some information to parents and students regarding how to change their security settings using LJ at: http://www.livejournal.com/support/faqbrowse.bml?faqid=24. Also, it’s imperative to have a discussion about online safety tips by directing them to available resources online including information from the LJ site at: http://www.livejournal.com/site/safetytips.bml. The LJ FAQ section is a great way to start the conversation and address some of the parental concerns and any questions that students may have in regards to its usage at: http://www.livejournal.com/support/faq.bml. Specifically, in regards to comments students could be given the option to change their privacy settings and choose who can reply to their entries (either registered users or friends rather than the default feature of “everybody”). Here’s a link to more information from LJ on how to control who can post comments at: http://www.livejournal.com/support/faqbrowse.bml?faqid=23. Particularly, this FAQ section mentions that if individuals raise the security levels of their entries they can essentially limit who can comment and will prevent anonymous entries.
Additionally, considering that these students are in Grade 9, it may help Noelene to obtain parental consent to the use of these blogs by offering them information on how it will ultimately benefit the students. I’ve compiled a brief list of references that I retrieved by conducting a preliminary search using the ERIC database below. Noelene could use this information to gather the positive benefits of using blogging in the classroom and to communicate that to the parents. For example, even the video by Fisch (2007) illustrated how students were kept motivated and felt more connected through the use of blogs. It also showed how the public nature of students postings helped make them more accountable to be able to support and defend the information they made available in the public domain. With that said, I’m certain that no student, parent, nor teacher would want inappropriate comments spamming their educational blogs as that is definitely not the intended purpose. Thus, Noelene may also want to consider developing a set of online standards for students to follow for their blogs to address this potential issue similar to the one created by Redekopp & Bourbonniere (2009) which includes aspects such as using appropriate language, not identifying themselves or others by name, and ensuring that all comments must be approved by the teacher prior to it being posted for others to read.
References
Downes, S. (2004). Educational blogging. Educause Review. Retrieved from http://net.educause.edu/ir/library/pdf/ERM0450.pdf
Fisch, K. (2007). Blogging: In their own words. The Fischbowl. Retrieved from http://thefischbowl.blogspot.com/2007/06/blogging-in-their-own-words.html
Pape, L. (2010). Blended teaching and learning. School Administrator, 67(4), 16-21. Retrieved from http://www.aasa.org/SchoolAdministratorArticle.aspx?id=12924
Redekopp, R. & Bourbonniere, E. (2009). Giving reluctant students a voice. Learning and Leading with Technology, 26(7), 34-35. Retrieved from http://www.eric.ed.gov/PDFS/EJ839528.pdf
Robertson, J. (2011). The educational affordances of blogs for self-directed learning. Computers & Education, 57(2), 1628-1644
West, K. C. (2008). Weblogs and literary response: Socially situated identities and hybrid social languages in English class blogs. Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy, 51(7), 588-598.
Yancey, K. B. (2009). Writing by any other name. Principal Leadership, 10(10), 26-29.
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