This blog is set up as private. The only people who can view it are people I invite. The only comments that can be added are ones that I have seen and approved. I set it up this way in less than 10 minutes. Because it is private, I can have students use their first names and photos in their blogger account profiles. However, we as teachers, must ensure that all of our google sites (blogger is one of them) are set up with this privacy in mind.
Before we set up accounts for students, we need to agree on this degree of privacy. I suggest that if Dolores needs temporary access to show at a conference or something, then that could be allowed. However, I also suggest that public access NOT be allowed at least for 4th grade and below (perhaps for 8th grade and below).
Students would rather see their real name and photo than have their account be public. If, for some reason, we need blogs and wikis to be public, then we must go to anonymous names such as 3Bl-1 to stand for 3Bledsoe, Student #1, or something like that.
As I continue to research Web 2.0 technologies in the world of education, there are plenty of sites (blogs, video, voicethreads, wikis) that have made public their 1st graders photos with their first names only. It could just be me, but I feel uncomfortable with that.
What are your thoughts on this?
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3 comments:
I think this idea has great merit. It would give teacher the freedom to incorporate the technologies that best suit the needs of their classes and curriculum while still protecting the students. As we wade into this new technological age a discussion about what skills the kids need to accomplish these sorts of projects would be helpful. The first couple of years both 3rd and 4th grade would have to do a fair amount of introduction to the technology. However, as time goes by some of the skills could and should simply become a part of the regular curriculum. I think we need to look at the NETS-Students and see what each means for a 3rd and 4th graders at Parish.
This is a big question for the tech team to answer this summer, Michelle, relative to use of names, photos, etc. on 2.0 tools. I think you have good thoughts here which will inform that discussion. Thanks for sharing.
DM
I feel we should keep all blogs for the younger children private, especially until we get deeper into the technology. We have spent a lot of time the last few years alerting our parents to the dangers of the open internet and encouraging their monitoring of their children's access. Several parents have expressed concern about how "out there" we are going to get with all this technology, and one mother even complained that she had a hard enough time keeping her kid off Facebook and her iPod, without the school endorsing it. I think those are concerns we need to be sensitive to as we move forward.
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