Objectives and Guidelines
for Safe and Responsible Blogging
Objectives:
- Explore how blogging affects your learning
- Improve your writing through a focus on the Six Traits of Writing
- Have a public space to discuss what you are leaning
- Make connections to your learning by exploring what others have written about it on the web
- Express your ideas and opinions
- Receive feedback through comments from those inside your school and the much larger audience beyond the classroom
- Develop a distinct voice
- Ask questions that will make you think and will encourage readers to respond
- Learn how to further conversations from appropriate comments from others
- Realize that inappropriate comments can be handled in a way that lessens their impact
- Experience ownership
- Provide a good model of blogging that will inspire others
- Learn collaboration skills
- Engage in face-to-face communication and discussions between teachers and students
- Write to learn
Guidelines for safe and responsible blogging:
First the Do’s:
- Conduct yourself in a manner reflective of a representative of this school.
- Treat your blog as a classroom space. It is not a place for personal and private issues that are not related to school topics.
- Strive to write respectfully and do not be rude. Blogs are about ideas but agree or disagree with the idea, not the person.
- Make specific suggestions and back up your opinions with facts.
- If you should come across anything online that makes you feel uncomfortable or afraid, minimize your screen immediately and report to your teacher.
- Do ask for permission to use any files that were created and owned by others, including photos, audio and video clips, etc.
- Do not post or give out your family name, password, home address, phone number or any personal information that would give information that would help someone directly locate or contact you in person. They se this same guideline when referring to class members.
- Do not post anything that you would not want your family, your teachers, your friends to read. Use correct English and be aware that everything you post is a reflection of you. You are an ambassador for elementary blogging.
- Don’t always believe everything you read online. You need to make a judgment about whether it can be trusted.
Traits of Successful School Bloggers:
- Accept the challenge of blogging to their “personal best.” Having challenging assignments provides the opportunity for them to demonstrate higher levels of performance and successful elementary bloggers welcome that challenge.
- Show improvement on their posts (or comments) with practice and guidance from others. Posts are thoughtful and show sharpened thinking. This includes not only good content, but – because these are school-related blogs – also follows writing conventions including spelling, grammar and punctuation.
- Respond to posts (or comments) by others. They begin to understand the power of blogs is in their connectedness – they are connected to a larger community of ideas. They anticipate and enjoy those connections.
- Work toward including posts (or comments) that include textual references to support their opinions. They begin to add quotes or links to other works. Their voice is apparent.
- Respect others. It’s okay to disagree; it’s not okay to be disagreeable. Be respectful of others and their opinions, and be polite when you disagree.
- Dare to take responsible educational "risks" to "bump their reading, writing, thinking and blogging up several notches!"
- Celebrate their own and their peers' successes!
CREDITS
I owe a huge thanks to many members of the edublogging community. I have pulled heavily from Karl Fisch's work. In my opinion, the AHS Blogging Policy developed for the use of weblogs at Arapahoe High School is the best. I tried to adapt his for the elementary schools. I particularly like the traits of successful bloggers and the samples of what appropriate blogging looks like. It focuses on the possibilities while not ignoring potential problems. Also, much credit is due to Lani Ritter Hall, Darren Kuropatwa, Bud Hunt, Ewan McIntosh, Jeanne Simpson and any others I may have missed.
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