I can see some major challenges that will arise when it comes to blogging. These include privacy settings, ethical uses of the blog, and my role in monitoring the blog. As for privacy settings I would prefer being able to set the blog to private and inviting only my students and their parents to view/edit the blog. I feel like this would enable minor students to maintain their privacy and it would give me the opportunity to teach them good digital citizenship.
Ethical uses of the blog can be covered by making the students read an design a waiver before participating in the blog. I can see the waiver stating something like this:
Blog User Guidelines
I _________________________ understand that when I am using http://hononegahbusinesslaw.blogspot.com/ for my Business Law class work, I am expected to follow the rules of the classroom and also those outlined in the Hononegah Student Handbook, specifically p. 41. As such, I will not demean, embarrass, or disrespect any student or teacher in any post, assignment, note, photo, video, or link. In addition, I understand that if I choose to bully or harass that I will be banned from the site in the first instance and will receive the appropriate punishment from the DA office.
I promise to use www.blogspot.com responsibly and ensure this opportunity for future students.
Signed: __________________________________________ Date: ________________
Print Name: ______________________________________
Finally, in terms of monitoring the blog and it's contents that is something that I will have to train myself to check, update, and maintain on a daily or weekly basis. I can see how it would work best to pilot the blog with one class or section before rolling it our to multiple classes to get a feel for the obligations. These challenges aside, I think I have a good plan to at least get started with blogging in my classroom.
No comments:
Post a Comment