Beyond School

The conversation about managing real student blogging - public, connective, prudent, real-world network-seeking - continues in the comments to my last post. Again, for RSS folks, not to be missed if this is a concern of yours. So I’m again posting the latest round of comments here. Doug Noon starts with a good challenging question, I return serve somewhat weakly, then (let’s mangle the metaphors) Diane Cordell knocks the tennis ball out of the park for a home run with this idea: blogging should be treated like driving. You have to take a “Driver Training” course before you’re “licensed.”

I think that’s brilliant. So the next step: how do we design that “blogger training course” most effectively?

Here’s the thread:

Doug Noon // Nov 11, 2007 at 4:18 am

I agree with you that the big issue for working with kids in a public forum is prudence. This would be no different than if we were preparing them to “go public” in any medium. We want to help them look their best, make a good impression, etc. Too much prudence, of course, can kill good writing.

The problem in evaluating how much, and where, prudence should be applied is that it’s a question of values, and there could be wide variation in terms of the audience the student wants to address. I can imagine some cases in which I’d be at a complete loss to help a student with the issues that might arise if they were trying to reach an audience that I didn’t understand at all. The coaching metaphor is useful since there might be a need for exploratory discussions about a student’s intentions. Blogging, as I’ve said before, is a social practice. If the subject matter is left wide open, the teacher’s role would shift from technical expert to something more like mentor, I suppose.

I really like the idea of putting the kids onto the idea of connecting with other bloggers and to identify a focus for a blog. Doing that is key to making blogging work. So what do you do when a student chooses a topic area with an audience whose social norms you might find objectionable? As you say, the issues would differ with the students’ ages, as well as their interests.

2 Clay Burell // Nov 11, 2007 at 8:28 pm

Hi Doug,

Your question: “So what do you do when a student chooses a topic area with an audience whose social norms you might find objectionable? ”

It’s an interesting one, and thanks for bringing it up. I expect you know things like this will be as rare as any other problematic event in student blogging - in my experience students show good judgment about their blogging and commenting 99% of the time - so you’re probably tossing that question in because we also all know that that 1% of poor student judgment threatens the whole enterprise. That’s why it’s worth finding these questions, to me - not because they will be common occurrences, but because even single occurrences can be damaging.

So if a student chooses “a topic area with an audience whose social norms [I] might find objectionable,” what should I do?

FIrst, I’m having a hard time thinking of an objectionable social norm. I guess a classroom blog for neo-Nazis, bigots, and other hate-groups fits the bill. (Is that what you had in mind?)

So if that happens - if Bobby decides to “blog for Hitler,” for example, and attract an audience of world-wide neo-Nazi bloggers - what an interesting situation. Seems like more of a “teachable year” than a “teachable moment.”

I’ve got a less extreme case (sorry for the meandering): teenagers can get awfully revealing about their private issues - eating disorders, suicidal tendencies, etc. Things we adult self-publishers typically have the good sense to keep to ourselves (I’ve never, for example, posted about my taste for pet-food*).

So suppose a student writes about wanting commit suicide. You’d think simply deleting the post from the blog, when you (the teacher) find it, solves the problem. But that’s not true, is it? My earlier comment about WayBack Machine not caching most sites failed to account for this fact: any RSS aggregator will have that post permanently, even if it was deleted from the original blog.

So where does that leave us?

What do you (anybody) think of an idea I’ve kicked around now and then: a “probationary” period of blogging in which all posts are submitted “private” - viewable only to “friends”, basically - until the individual blogger has shown he/she has the good sense to keep dirty laundry and damning information private?

I don’t like it - it’s based on mistrust. The opposite approach, like a hockey game, would be to allow all to play, but put any offenders in the “penalty box” if they show poor judgment.

No more time for the moment - have to prep for school tomorrow - but do want to add that in the extreme cases (the neo-Nazi, e.g.), that “teachable year” would involve asking the parents to be involved, and the school admin.

Which points to the conversations about the “social nature” of blogging both you and Diane mention. Mature students should understand the affiliation of their own blogs with their school, their family, their teachers, their classmates. Or they should understand it once it has been discussed and digested in the classroom.

Thanks for the input. Helped. Have to run now.

*obviously a joke — isn’t it?

3 diane // Nov 11, 2007 at 10:28 pm
Clay,
There are many activities that come with age and maturity prerequisites. Given the age of my Current Events students, getting a driver’s license immediately springs to mind!

The new driver must be at least 16 (in my state), take a mandated course about the dangers and responsibilities of driving, pass a general knowledge test, practice, then receive a license with limited privileges.

For the blogging analogy, I would keep the instruction and maybe some initial guided practice. Since your students are older - almost legal adults, I think you could probably “grant” them full blogging rights after that.

Wouldn’t it be wonderful if blogging became as desirable as drinking (a lame but vivid analogy, suggested by my recent PowerPoint experiences!) and students did it with or without our “permission” because they wanted to!

–I think I see one high-value wiki worth making here: “Blogger Training School.” How to make it short and to the point? Toward key “courses”:

1. Prevent Theft: Lock Your Identity!
Do not reveal:
full name (unless parents okay it)
birthday
SSN or non-US equivalent
home or school address
phone number
[YOUR SUGGESTIONS HERE])

2. Buckle Up: Don’t Hurt Yourself!
Do not reveal, in words or images:
your mental illnesses (suicidal thoughts, eating disorders, bigotry, racism)
your hateful side
your rude side
your spoiled side
your immature side
your criminal record
your craziest party stories
your sex life
your sexual fantasies
your high-level cursing skills
your grammar and spelling weaknesses
your inability to distinguish self-publishing from a chatroom
–anything else that would knock you out of a job or college. DON’T LET YOUR BLOGGING HURT YOU! WEAR A “MATURITY BELT.”

3. DANGEROUS DRIVING: DON’T HURT OTHERS!
Do not:
attack others by name (attacking ideas can be okay, but not people - especially by name. What if someone did that to you?)
attack others generally
post images that could hurt others
reveal information that could embarrass you, your family, your school, your friends, or anybody else in the community (again, criticizing ideas is possible without embarrassing people)
leave hateful comments
bully
spread rumors
slander people

That’s as much as I have time for right now.

Diane Cordell adds these tweets from Twitter, before I close:

Driving out of lanes: loss of focus in writing. Failure to observe signs: blog courtesy violations!

What about “improper signaling” or “failure to signal” when posts are improperly tagged or not tagged at all.

Your additions?

Photo: Entering Hyperspace by Eole on Flickr

If you like this post, please spread it:

1. Another Comments Thread Worth Sharing: Grappling with the Big Questions on Classroom Blogging Policy
2. The Silver Bullet? One Idea for Saving Blogging from the Werewolf
3. “That’s not Homework; That’s Writing”: Authentic Student Blogging (Presentation Snippet 2)

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