Journal Entry #4

"Moderating and Ethics for the Classroom Instructional Blog," by Patricia Deubel, Ph.D.

In this article, the author questions the use of blogs in the K-12 instructional setting, in particular questioning her own use and how she would manage the students if she required them to blog for class participation. The author discusses uses for blogs, to include student journals, portfolios, communication with parents and community members, and classroom management.

After listing the possibilities for using blogs in the classroom, Dr. Deubel admits that there is a lot of work required to run a classroom blog efficiently. Here she lists the standards, goals, and essential questions necessary to run the blog in a successful manner. She discusses what she, as a teacher facilitating use of blogs, would do to run the blog as best as possible, to include the following:

• Set-up focused discussion;


• Limit the time of the discussion;


• Identify frequency and due dates;


• Make her own presence known; and


• Require participation from all students.

To enhance the possibilities of how she would use blogging in her classroom, the author then sets up a list of guidelines which would be helpful to any educator using blogs as a way to educate their students. The guidelines are helpful, providing much-needed information for educators of future bloggers.

Finally, the author covers the issue of ethics and dangers involved in blogging. She encourages teachers to ask tough questions, like whether they would delete unwanted comments, limiting free expression, and whether they would let students define their own rules. She points out in the final section that there are many dangers to blogging, including but not limited to plagiarism and misrepresentation of fact.

Question 1: Do the dangers of blogging, as mentioned at the end of this article, outweigh the benefits of blogging in an educational setting?

Answer 1: I believe there are pros and cons to blogging, but essentially a person needs to be very careful when they are working with blogs. As the article mentioned, dangers can include plagiarism, misrepresentation of fact, conflicts of interest, and marketing vs. substantial content. It's one thing to blog, and read blogs, just for the fun of it, but it's another thing to use blogs to replace the age-old methods of learning and communicating via books and open classroom discussion. I believe the occasional use of blogs as a fun activity for the kids is not a bad idea, I just don't care for the idea of expecting blogs to take the place of classroom discussion and activities.

Question 2: When using blogs in the classroom setting, should teachers spend as much time as necessary to ensure success of the assignment, to include issues of ethics and the dangers of blogging?

Answer 2: Most definitely! If an instructor does choose to use blogging in the classroom, the instructor would be foolish not to monitor all activity of the blog as it is used by students. As it would be expected, a blog can be extremely time-consuming, so if the instructor feels the blog is taking up too much time, then blog use should be limited or the instructor should cancel the blog altogether. It would not be in the best interest of the students or staff for a community blog used by minors to not be monitored. In fact, it could pose many legal and ethical problems for the unconcerning teacher.