Five Don'ts of Classroom Blogging: Avoiding These Pitfalls Will Help Students Get the Full Benefits of Online Journaling

NO ONE NEEDS TO SELL BROCK DUBBELS on the use of blogging as a part of curriculum. Dubbels, an engineering teacher at Washburn High School in Minneapolis has seen firsthand that his students perform better when they know their peers will be reviewing their work as opposed to merely having to face the judgment of their teacher. But ironically, in Dubbels' experience, the voice that blogging gives to students is what presents the most potential trouble. Kids will always push the line on what they say to each other, and what they link and educators can find themselves on the defensive. call it technicaleducaphobia, says Dubbels, a former English teacher and a doctoral candidate in reading and comprehension at the University of Minnesota, where he teaches a course called Video Games as Learning Tools. Teachers have often been placed in situations where they don't have access to equipment that will monitor these things, or they don't consider the larger picture and oftentimes get into trouble. These become cautionary tales, and other teachers decide, 'Well, rm not going to do that.' But the potential trouble is worth the rewards. You just have to plan around the potential problems. Start by sidestepping these common pitfalls. [ILLUSTRATIONS OMITTED] 1. DON'T just dive in. If you put kids on blogs without setting up your guidelines and objectives, I can guarantee you will have a lot of problems, warns Anne Davis, an information systems training specialist at Georgia State University. As a component of the instructional technology outreach she provides to K-12 teachers and schools, she teaches blogging at K-12 schools throughout Georgia. She keeps her own Edublog (http://anne.teaches.me), as she named it, where she discusses the use of blogs in education and provides her own blogging projects. Davis advises teachers to have their students sign off on a code of conduct for blogging that covers areas such as bullying, slander, and foul language. In Davis' classrooms, students who violate the rules lose their internet privileges. She also says it's a good idea for a teacher to send a note to parents describing the specific blogging project and to get an adult signature granting permission. She suggests teachers search for interesting educational blogs, and then e-mail the educators behind them for advice. Finally, invest in some practice time before turning students loose on the internet. Davis, who does most of her work for the Rockdale County Public Schools in Conyers, GA, where she was a classroom teacher for many years, devotes several early sessions with students to talking about proper conduct, how to upload a post, and what makes a good blog and comment. The important thing is not to just jump in and blog, but spend the time letting students see samples, understand guidelines, and anticipate blogging and what it can mean to their learning, she says. The time you spend will pay off for you double when you get down to it, because they want to blog well. [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Our kids aren't digital natives, Davis adds, challenging one of cyberspace's most oft-repeated axioms. are just kids who grew up with a lot of digital media. They aren't natural bloggers. 2) DON'T confuse blogging with social networking. MySpace, Facebook, and other social networking tools are just that--social networking platforms. However, a genuine educational blog is not about socializing, but about students helping each other get through coursework. That's why Davis says savvy teachers work to keep the focus of blogging on academic collaboration, helping students frame thought-provoking questions at the end of their blog entries that will invite valuable comments. This is a different writing space than students are accustomed to, Davis says. For that reason, she doesn't grade on the quality of posts, but rather on whether students completed the assignments in a serious manner. …