The safety of their students is obviously a huge concern for educators, and i think that this concern increases tremendously when you add an internet element to the classroom. My ideas regarding keeping our students safe online are:
1. Assigning pseudonyms to my students, (perhaps the names of cartoon characters or literary characters?) so that there is no chance of their identities being compromised in any way. In our classroom, we could have a poster/s showing who is who, so that the students in our class can identify their classmates online.
2. Creating a closed class blog, thus limiting access to only those students, parents and educators who are a part of our community. This obviously closes off any opportunity for an outside audience, thus limiting the possible readers and responses that or work can have.
3. If I do decide to have an open blog for my students or class, setting strict guidelines for appropriate content. Anything that you wouldn't say in class probably shouldn't be said on the class blog. Educating the students on what to do if they believe that something is inappropriate will allow and empower them to self-monitor the blog.
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Anne,
ReplyDeleteI really like your idea of assigning literary characters or cartoon characters to ID the students. This provides security, but also allows us as teachers to know who is saying what.
In my classroom, I think I would encourage the students to pick historical figures!
With your 3rd point, I'm not sure if you mean open just for your class, or open to the world. I'd definitely make sure to screen comments if it is open to anyone.
ReplyDeleteI really like the idea of assigning pseudonyms for your students so the class knows who is who, but the world doesn't. For a history classroom I thnk it'd be great, like Anne said, to have the students pick people throughout history as their online persona. It would add an element of fun, and maybe you can even incorporate their character into assignments. The students could be asked to think about a topic as their online identity... what would Abraham Lincoln, or Piggy from Lord of the Flies, think about our topic? Could go anywhere from there.
Anne,
ReplyDeleteJust like the members of your group, I'm fascinated with the idea of pseudonyms from history or literature. As Mr. Miller points out, it "could go anywhere from there!"
Dr. Burgos
Gosh, I hadn't even though about having the students responding through the eyes of their characters!
ReplyDeleteThis is a great example of how educators can use blogs to share and elaborate on each other's ideas!