Module 4, Unit 2’s Reflections (1)
Jul 12th, 2009 by Ed Leung
Public space blogging
As an educator, the parents’ concerns or complaints raised about Noelene’s weblog assignment is not uncommon. However, I must also point out that parents actually know very little of what information their children are disclosing in the public forum through social networking websites and other online means. By comparison, the information that they may disclose on a weblog that they know will be marked by a teacher, and viewed by all fellow students, probably amount to little in the area of secrecy or privacy.
That said, this explanation likely will not satisfy the worrying parents. What I think Noelene can do to reassure the parents is to go over with the students (if she has not done so already), the availability for anyone to view the content that is published onto a public domain such as a weblog. She can also remind students that when they are composing their weekly reflection and discoveries for their “something kewl” assignment, that they need to take the necessary means to protect their own identity. For example, avoid identifying the students’ actual name (perhaps allowing the use of initials only), place to live, and school to attend…
The notion of “strangers” leaving comments on a student’s weblog, meanwhile, should not be a very difficult problem to solve. While I do not use LiveJournal to post my personal blogs (so there is no way for me to check), I know that, in Blogger (powered by Google), Yahoo Blog, WordPress, etc., the author of a weblog can alter the weblog’s setting so that only a selected group of people can post responses. If Noelene and/or the parents feel very concerned of a stranger posting comments of an inappropriate nature onto a student’s weblog, she can easily ask all the students to change their weblog’s setting so that only other students in the class can post a comment. That way, students can continue to interact with one another through the use of weblog, but people outside of the class would no longer be able to post comments to the students’ work.