Noelene teaches Grade 9 English at a private high school in the Sea-to-Sky corridor (along BC’s Sea-to-Sky Highway 99, between Squamish and Pemberton, including Whistler). Getting her students to inculcate the practice of writing is challenging: bringing blogs into her curriculum seems like a great way to integrate purposeful learning activities with those many students already enjoy.
After doing some research she decides to use LiveJournal as the delivery platform for an activity she calls No, really: something kewl I discovered online this week. Noelene has created a community on LiveJournal called Something Kewl. Students must post once a week to the community, describing something noteworthy found online. Students need to set up their own blog on LJ (as it’s called) in order to post to the community.
Students have the option of posting a draft version of their entry to their own blog, in order to receive formative feedback from Noelene. In each term a student earns up to 10 marks for their entries, so long as they are substantial and well-edited; anyone whose entire 10 entries are free of surface errors gets a bonus of 5 points. Each Friday the class reviews that week’s entries, which are posted no later than Wednesday night.
The students love doing the activity, and she can see their writing improving. However two parents expressed concern about the activity because: 1.) it’s public, and 2.) strangers have been commenting in their children’s personal LJs.
How might Noelene address the concerns raised by the parents in a way that does not negatively impact the activity for the students? Are there justifications for having students work in public spaces on the web?
Post your thoughts on this to the Public or private discussion forum under Module 4.
Dealing with Noelene’s Worrisome Parents
This is an interesting case and one that I am sure will become more prominent as blogging becomes more mainstream in the classroom. Before providing some suggestions, I think it is important to note that the concerns the parents have in this case are precisely one of the reasons I have been trying to get my own class blogs into a public space – to provide opportunities for my students to interact with the world rather than our small group of peers. Unfortunately, either through portrayal in the media or misuse by students and staff the Internet has become a place that many view as being unsafe and full of predators. While I am not naive enough to think that there are not predators or inappropriate behaviour on the Internet, I fear that the only press the Internet gets these days is when something bad happens. (When was the last time we heard a story on the front page of the local newspaper about how students were able to interact with other students who actually lived in a place where a world event was occurring?) In my opinion, the positives far outweigh the negatives. Moreover, as parents and educators, when did we start turning our backs on an opportunity because their might be some negatives aspects that could happen? To use an analogy, not allowing students to use the Internet in a public forum would be like not allowing the same student to go out for recess as they might get kidnapped. Kidnappings do happen and they got a lot of press, but we don’t stop the kids from playing. We supervise them, we educate them on how not to put themselves in dangerous situations and we follow through when dangerous or suspicious situations occur. Why wouldn’t we take the same approach online? Anyway, there is my ramble. Therefore, my suggestions for Noelene would be:
1.) Educate the parents and students before the activity has begun. Have examples ready of this working in other settings. Discuss the benefits and have students weigh in on their feelings about it by providing hard examples. Allow other parents to show support. Use analogies to other real-world parenting situations. Have the person in charge of privacy at your school provide the legalities. Make dealing with these parents a group effort so it does not look you are a rogue (even if you might feel that way) in embarking on this educational opportunity!
2.) Although there are opportunities for settings changes to provide a certain level of protection, it is important not to get away from the opportunity of allowing students to interact with the world. Have students use handles or avatars that only the other peers in class know. Make sure the teacher is clearly monitoring the blog and confronts suspicious behaviour.
3.) Mix up the blog activities. Perhaps throw in the Fischbowl method using real-time blogging from the “outer circle” (Fisch, 2007). This method would be an opportunity to turn on the privacy settings to do internal activities. If the group of parents could still not be won over, at least Noelene would have some opportunities to still use her methods.