Safe Blogging
Blogs (weblogs), such as this one, are easily-updated, instantly-published journals. They allow students to control multi-media, such as embedding videos and presentations, as well as commenting on each other’s work.
Now that the school uses Moodle, which is on-site, password-protected and private, we are unlikely to use public blogging platforms for student work and discussion in HPD. However, some students might feel they want to develop their own online blogs, so here are some simple steps to ensure safety in blogging:
1. No real names in full.
First names are used only, and definitely no first name-last name combinations. In fact, students are encourages to use cryptic or comedy pseudonyms in their work. The teachers know who they are for the purposes of grading and feedback.
2. No personal or contact details may be posted.
If you look around, some of the students have pretty funny false life stories!
3. No photos of students with names attached.
To protect anonymity, we will not allow identification of students in images.
4. No comments from strangers.
Students are encouraged to comment on and respond to each others’ work as part of the peer-review and collaborative learning process – it helps build community around a project. However, if a student sees a comment on their blog from someone unknown, they are encouraged to delete it and not to reply.
5. Check sources before embedding links, videos or images
When designing tasks, care is taken not to provide links to websites promoting unacceptable values or those which are known to be an internet security risk.
6. Regular teacher checks
Teachers check in on each student’s blog as often as possible to ensure work is being completed appropriately and that no suspect links or comments have been added. Teachers provide comments as feedback on completion of tasks and will take appropriate action if a student uses their blog to breach the school’s reasonable use of the internet policy.
7. Make good decisions.
There is a lot of great information on the internet, as well as a lot of junk. We aim to maintain a balance between editorial control and freedom of inquiry. Part of this process is to encourage students to make good decisions on their use of the internet as a learning tool and as a source of entertainment – but not to abuse the resource.
Some strategies we use to encourage engagement and ownership of students’ own blogs:
1. Freedom to choose screen-names and blog styles.
There is no need to prescribe a style to be followed in a blog – there are many different colourful templates available and they all function in the same way. Freedom to design one’s own blog is the same as the freedom to design one’s own ideal learning space. Also, screen-names (as long as they are not offensive) should be student-owned and encourage the student to feel a connection with their project.
2. Freedom to get ahead.
Some students are very internet-literate and can finish tasks quickly. We encourage them to try the features offered by the blog provider and to add images, videos and widgets to enhance their blog space. We make two simple rules for this extension work: 1. they must be science-related or add functionality to the blog; 2. they must be safe and acceptable and should be checked by the teacher.
3. Freedom to make mistakes.
Some students struggle with the process of blogging – we aim to give them sufficient time and one-to-one support through the process, especially in the early stages. We do not make heavy assessment demands on the project, to ensure that all students find it achievable and engaging. One great thing about blogging is that mistakes are easily fixed and support is always available.
4. Lead by example
We post the instructions for a task on the class blog, to show that the task is achievable (and to give an idea of what the end result might look like).
5. Comment on students’ work.
Everyone loves constructive feedback – an nowhere is this more true than in the blogosphere. Feedback is provided to make sure that students stay on task and have a focus for their work
