In my reading and language arts classroom, students enjoying posting what they think online. At the present time, we use a secured site for students under 13 years old. I post questions about the current novel we are reading and the students enjoy sharing what they think. Students also post any projects we have completed which allows them to view and make comments on each other's work. We could do all this on a class blog site.
My question to my classmates would be how do I get around the safety issue? I know some others of grade school students are using blogs, but my school is very careful about the students' work being so public. If students use username, I suppose we could work it out.
Hi Shelley,
ReplyDeleteI suppose making the blog private for elementary students will reduce the risks these young hearts may face online. This will limit them to the school community which I believe is large enough for them. On the other hand schools may work together having a joint blog site that is can be assessed by the students with a common password. What do you think?
Thanks. I guess I didn't know I could make it private. I have much to learn! Schools working together would be great. I didn't know you could use a password. This is my first experience with a blog. My students have just figured out that their classmates can read their responses on our ThinkQuest site, but I would love to see what they would do with another school. Thanks for the idea!
ReplyDeleteShelley, look again at the video "Spotlight on Technology: Blogging in the Classroom." It gives you great ideas of how to develop a proper blogging page. And Damilola is right, you can limit access to the blog for your students or for the school community. That idea about pseudonyms is a good one, and to emphasize in students about the kind of information they should not add in their works could be another good safety measurement.
ReplyDeleteI was told this story about a girl who used to chat with a boy of her age (or that she thought) and she used to tell him the team she played for, what sport, her hometown, and other kind of information you could think is not traceable. After telling this boy about her coming practice that afternoon, during it, she noticed a man was watching her close by. When she arrived home, she found that same man in her living room talking to her dad. This man was that "boy" she thought was her age, and he could track her with the information she gave her. He explained her that her daughter had the same experience, but she was not so lucky, because that man killed his daughter. This is the kind of stories you could make to children so they can have a good impression of what they should not reveal in the Internet about themselves.
Hearing such stories and there are so many of them, brings the shivers down one's spine. We just need to educate our students about how to safely conduct themselves on the net. Letting them hear such stories will let them know the risk involved and make them behave wisely. However there is still a subtle way to get through to a child, so an adult supervision is very essential.
ReplyDeleteEven though technology is such an important educational tool, it really has to monitored and monitored well because so many people us it for the wrong reasons andwhen that happens people can get hurt. Facebook for instance is the means students use to say awful things about each other and the next thing you know they are fighting because of something someone put on facebook about them and it goes on. I believe blogging is wondergul and I want to have my students blog instead of writing in their journals so that they can comment on each others comments but I will use usernames and only I will know who the students are for grading purposes. I will grade them based on them making the number of blogs and comments required and I will look at the grammar but as long as their comments are appropriate they can make any comment they wish it jsut needs to be checked for spellling and grammatical errors.
ReplyDeleteIt seems like you have found a great way to get the students involved with the internet and blogging. I am not sure how to monitor it as much as you would like. I know that my school district is very strict with websites. I cannot view many blogs at school without doing a teacher override but that does not prevent people from seeing it outside of the school. I would just make sure the get parental permission on everything that is posted or leave some postings anonymous.
ReplyDeleteI like your idea of posting projects for peer review. My students would love to see others' work, especially since I have more than one class of a particular subject. It was suggested to me to have the students anonymously comment on other students' journal entries because some feel shy about sharing. As long as their usernames are something like their student ID numbers or some other identifying number all school personnel have access to, just in case something happen while I wasn't there. The closed school website would be safer, in my opinion. If school to school sharing, in a debate for instance, it might be conducted on a separate blog or website.
ReplyDeleteI think that you just have to monitor it closely. I'm sure they are so excited.
ReplyDeleteAs for safety, our district purchased its own google sites url. It has the option to only allow those in the district to view the pages.
ReplyDeleteIt all goes back to the policy makers, that will give teachers the opportunity to teach using technology as long as they are excercising security and responsibility. I have the same concerns that you do Shelley.
ReplyDeleteHi Shelley,
ReplyDeleteMany blogs allow you to moderate-so no comment would be able to be made without your approval. I wonder if that would be helpful in terms of keeping content safe and appropriate.
You may also find a dedicated blog site -- maybe something created in Moodle--that only your students can access--though many sites will allow to restrict access.
Thanks for sharing about your blogging experience.
Thanks Susan. I'll check out Moodle. Our high school used Edmoto. (I think that is it) I was told we cannot use it at the middle school because of student age. I'll need to investigate more!
ReplyDeleteThanks everyone for your comments! My county is looking into Google sites as well. The students grab any thing I through at them and run with it! It's crazy. They are like little puppies lapping up every new way to use technology. I need to find a way to get my own set of netbooks before my fellow teachers get sick of signing out the lab all the time.