February 5, 2007

In reading the articles for this module, it seems that blogging is quickly being incorporated into the educational environment. In the f2f classroom reflective journaling has long played a part in many lessons from novel responses through problem solving activities in math, and even within the social studies to create personal ties to curricula. I have myself had middle schoolers create journals as historical characters and describe, using actual historical facts, their own personal reactions to events that occur. This creates an immediate human connection with materials that can be difficult to access for younger students especially.

What the readings this week propose is taking the many uses of reflective journaling from the f2f classroom into the virtual realm. The main difference gives rise to the main caution. Blogs are public, not private and can be accessed as well as critiqued by anyone. Students need to be able to understand the impact and context of such critiques. As an educator part of my responsibility in using blogs would be to address this concern. I might, depending on the age level and maturity of the students, start by setting up strict guidelines for using a blog, perhaps as a tool to respond to specific questions where I can control the content and thus some of the critiques. I might also have my students practice responding to other people's blogs in a constructive manner under my guidance so they can judge the quality of responses. An additional protection might be to create my blog on a site such as edublogs where the content is not wide open (think My Space!) and you must register to read the blogs.