Mod2: Safety First Kids

Blogging assignment numero dos: 
post a comprehensive list of things to teach students about safe blogging


After checking out some informative sites, reading through a few blogs and different schools online safety policies here are some straight forward fundamentals to safe blogging:

• Never offer any personal information including your last name, contact information, home address, phone numbers, school's name, e-mail address, last names of friends or relatives, instant messaging names, age, or birth date.
• Assume what you publish on the Web is permanent. Anyone on the Internet can easily print out a blog or save it to a computer. 

The above mentioned fundamentals and others can be found here.

• Students using blogs are expected to treat blogspaces as classroom spaces. Speech that is inappropriate for class is not appropriate for our blog. While we encourage you to engage in debate and conversation with other bloggers, we also expect that you will conduct yourself in a manner reflective of a representative of this school.

The above mentioned fundamentals and others can be found here.

One of the interesting lists I found on multiple sites were not only safety procedures but also blogging guidelines:

• Keep blogs positive and don't use them for slander or to attack others.
• Use common sense
• Make your posts and comments worth reading by doing your best work.
• Reread everything you type for mistakes and errors!
• Use correct grammar, spelling, and punctuation.
• Work towards expressing yourself in thoughtful, clear, detailed writing every time you post.
• Always provide photo credits to their sources (go through Creative Commons).
• Write in your own words. If you occasionally want to use the words of someone else, use quotes and give credit to that person.

The last six guidelines come from a blog, which you can access here.  

Interested in learning more about cyber safety? 
Learn how to be a good CYBER CITIZEN
National Cybersecurity Awareness Month
Learn about the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA)

Mod2: The Beginning is a VERY Good Place to Start...

Although this is not my first time blogging, it is the first time I am blogging for educational purposes.  In the past I would consider my blogging more like journaling.  I hope that from this course I will have my own "online portfolio" of how to use the internet and all it has to offer within my classroom.  


The first blogging assignment :  
"post an entry on your blog describing three ways that you could or are using blogs in your own teaching and mention the standards from your field that student blogging would meet"


In the beginning I think that I would start my students out by having them complete simple tasks, in order to get aquatinted with the site and ease them into the blogging world, by posting assignments and and commenting on/ responding to the classroom blog.  Also as a launching point I would like to have a listing of listening links which they could click to listen to/ watch and post comments about.  


Once the students are acquainted with the idea of blogging I would like each student to start their own blog.  Giving them their own space will allow the students to take ownership and (hopefully) pride in the way their blog looks, the content they write and post, and comments they make.  We have all experienced how it feels when someone comments or "like"s a picture, post or comment on FB.  I would hope that blogging would in the classroom would have a similar effect.  


Finally, I would like to use blogs to bridge the gap between the classroom and home.  Using the internet is a great tool for parental communication.  Using the blog as a one stop information spot where parents can become informed as to what is happening in the classroom, see their own child's best work, and look at pictures is extremely useful and an advantage for both the teacher and the parent.  


The above mentioned uses of blogs in the classroom meet the  k-12 TESOL standards of
Listening
Listening is an active skill. By highlighting an assortment of listening tasks across standards, the need to involve students in active listening and purposeful listening skills development becomes clear.
Reading
English language learners process, interpret, and evaluate written language, symbols, and text with understanding and fluency. Learning to read in a second language may be enhanced or hindered by students’ level of literacy in their native language. Students who have a strong foundation in reading in their first language bring with them skills that can be readily transferred in the process of learning to read in English.
Writing
English language learners use written communication for a variety of purposes and audiences. Writing can be used to express meaning through drawing, symbols, or text. English language learners may come with writing styles influenced by their home cultures.

I am looking forward to being able to learn more about blogging.  I am also excited to take what has been traditionally used as social technology and see how it can be transformed into social learning technology.