The Situation:
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?

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Proactive or Protective?
The first thing I would advise her to do (as did kathie) would be to have a Parent-Teacher night and/or prepare an explatory newsletter and/or post information on the class/school website/blog/wiki….