Internet safety for our kids

After reading the articles “Content Delivery in the ‘Blogsphere’” from THE JOURNAL and “Instructional Blogging” as well as visiting blogs this week I think we need to be clear what our expectation is for blogging with our students.  We need to get across to our students that you are publishing to the world and your writing is a reflection of you and the educational institution.  Some of the blogs I went to the students were writing like they were IMing, that really bothered me for an educational blog.  At the same blog students were blogging because they had to, they stated that and their lack of enthusiasm showed.    I do think set up correctly that blogs can help students become critical thinkers.  Students are reading and synthesizing what their classmates are saying and if blogging rules are set up properly, they are responding in a thoughtful way to their classmates. From an instructional point, I like the idea of guided instruction for using the blogs at least at the beginning.  This is a model I am familiar with having used Responsive Classroom when I was a teacher. THE JOURNAL article mentions blogs help to “democratize the Internet, addressing some of the concerns under girding the digital divide.”  I am not sure that is the case, as not all students have access at home that to me is a bit of a hurdle.  I know in the past
Tracy has said kids will find ways to get online and I think there is some truth to that, but there are kids, who are not socially aware or involved who don’t have access.  That is a bit of a hurdle that can possibly be overcome if we keep our buildings open longer after school and perhaps allow for a late bus on certain days.  Being rural is not easy sometimes.  I am finding Web 2.0 and all the aspects that go along with it are going to be a big learning curve for me.  I am not used to the dynamic nature of this part of technology and I wonder how other educators find the time to develop some of these very intensive, active blogs.  I am glad I am doing this in the summer because I think I would feel very overwhelmed during the school year when all the students and teachers are around.  Debbie