Journal # 3

Five Don’ts of Classroom Blogging
By Julie Sturgeon

This article discusses the importance of incorporating blogging into the classroom curriculum, but taking precaution while do it. The Dubbles, an engineer teacher, mentions how, “there may be problems that come along with blogging, but the potential trouble is worth the rewards”. The author interviews a couple of teachers about blogging and what their input is on it. Collaboratively they come up with five Don’ts of classroom blogging.
Don’t just dive in is the first don’t. Anne Davis, an information systems training specialist at Georgia State University, mentions how it is important for teachers to have the students and parents sign off on a waiver stating that they are aware of the rules that cover bullying, slander, and foul language. If they break any of these rules the students will lose their Internet privileges. Along with the don’t Anne goes on to discuss how blogging can be beneficial for your children. One of the main benefits was that they could become better writers. “Writing notification is one of the most difficult things to do for students”.
Secondly, Don’t confuse blogging with social networking. Many times blogging can be confused with social networking sites such as, MySpace and Facebook. For blogging to be an academic tool for the students’ blogging should only be for discussing course work and not personal matters.
Thirdly, Don’t leap at the freebies. Jeffery Yan, a professor and CEO of e-portfolio developer Digitation, discusses how just because a blogging site is free does not mean that it is the best site for the school districts needs. Even though, the site is free of cost, the amount of advertisements on the sites can cause several problems for the school. Davis suggests trying Class Blogmeister because it is simple and offers teachers control over what is going on in the blogs.
Don’t force a sequential style is the fourth don’t. What this section talks about is that the person who is structuring the blog should title their blogs by title rather than by time in order for it to be more convenient for not only the subscriber to find a certain blog, but also for someone who is reading your blog.
Finally, Don’t leave the blogging to the students. This section lets us know that the teacher should also be blogging to communicate with outsiders, students, faculty, and parents.
Blogging is something that can really help a student come out of their shell and open up. That is the problem with many kids today; they don’t want to talk out loud because they fear what others will think. Blogging is another option for them to reveal their opinions.


Question 1
When the students are on the computer blogging at school, how will you block them from getting onto to those other social networking sites?

I think that if a school is going to have this program that they should put up blockers on the computers to stop the students from entering those sites.

Question 2
Are you going to do blogging in your classroom?

I would definitely use blogging in my classroom. I am actually excited to try this. The good thing about blogging is that you can you use it with any grade level. I feel that it is important to teach the students, regardless of their age, about computers so that they can use this in their future.