My Top 5 Blog Safety Rules/Policies for Students:
1. Each student must submit a parent/guardian signed waiver that permits you to participate in our classroom blog before we begin. This waiver describes the goals/purpose of the blog and specifies the web address for parents&guardians so that they may monitor our class activity.
2. Be respectful of your blogmates. All criticisms should be constructive and you must give all viewpoints and opinions a chance to be heard.
3. All comments will be approved by the teacher before they are published. Use appropriate language at all times or your response will not be ok'd!
4. Keep personal information limited. Only post with your first name and last initial. Do not provide your email address, username or any other personal information in your response. Do the same when responding to your classmates' posts (use only their first names). Tagging a location to your response (FourSquare or any other software) is prohibited. NO personal photographs should be used for your user profile.
5. Do not communicate with someone you do not know. If you suspect that an unknown user is attempting to participate in our class blog, alert me immediately.
Before we begin working on our blog, I would have a class discussion talking about acceptable Internet practices that they already know of, and I would add in any I think are missing. We would also talk about how all of our classroom guidelines would apply (student-generated rules we come up with at the beginning of the school year) on the blog. On the back of the parent waiver, I would have the class-created blog policies (in addition to these 5 I've listed) and have each student sign off that they agree to follow them. I think Richardson makes a great point when he says "the more documentaion and backup you have...the better" (47). Just the same, the more blog safety policies we discuss with our students, the better!
Hey Hannah-
ReplyDeleteI like your rule about having the parent signed waiver in order to let them use the blog. That's an aspect that I hadn't considered before I read your rules. I know that you used blogs in your classroom- did you have any parent resistance to using the blogs?
The only real issues that came up with parents were confusions about due dates. At my 2nd placement, parents were very involved in their student's grades, and contacted us as to why their children received a 0 grade (the classroom did not allow for late work). Other than that, I didn't have any parental concerns about the blog. I used my blogs with 11th graders, so I think that may have played in to the trust the parents gave them, too!
ReplyDeleteHannah
ReplyDeleteI think the first tip you brought up is very important. Once something happen, parents need to know that sometimes it’s not the instructor‘s fault, but students who are responsible for the consequences.
Regarding the third tip, I am concerning about the time teacher spending on each comments students made. Maybe it’s better for teacher to delete inappropriate judgments and to give them warnings so students will learn their lessons.
Cady-
ReplyDeleteThe blog system I used at both of my student teaching placements allowed you to put comments on hold until you approved them. I read each post quickly (not grading at this point, just checking for appropriateness) and approved or left it in the teacher box. This also provided a filter in case students posted their last name or email, so that that information never made it to the internet. Some may find it requires too much time, but I thought it was time well spent.