Why We’re Told No.

From my experiences and what I’ve read and gained from talking with other educators, we are generally told we cannot use blogs in the classroom for various reasons.

1. Blogs violate student privacy laws created in FERPA (US only, but I think many countries have similar guidelines).
2. Blogs make students vulnerable to internet predators.
3. Blog posts are disruptive to a student’s education.
4. Students are unaware that what they post online is available to anybody surfing the web.
5. Blogging is not educational.

Now, in the world of academe and politics, the solution to these problems–beyond banning blogs–is to pass rules and legislation that prevents educators from using any form of new technology in the classroom. I think, at least in the realm of academe that these rules are too often passed by administrators who do not fully understand the full capacity of these new technologies. Administrators who blog, from my experiences and the experiences of those that I have spoken to, tend to support teachers in their decision to add this media to their pedagogical practices. This is not to say that all administrators who do not blog are not willing to see how this works, but I believe the majority are too hesitant for the rules listed above. So, I want to take a second and look at each of these objections from a educator’s standpoint.

Blogs violate student privacy laws created in FERPA

(US only, but I think many countries have similar guidelines).

This is a hard one for me to wrap my mind around right now. The reason for this is that I’ve read the FERPA policy many times and I understand that, at it’s core, I cannot give out their personal information. But, I don’t see how this is a violation of FERPA rights. So, I’m working on getting this question answered. This is the reason that I was not allowed to use blogs in my class this semester. It came from one of the deans who is also a former English Professor, so I’m going to see if I cannot have a sit down with her and find out what the scoop is on this one. I’ll post more after I have the chance to chat with her about the reasons behind this.

Blogs make students vulnerable to internet predators.

I can see the motivation behind this argument. When the news headlines are talking about a young girl committing suicide because of a MySpace hoax, I can see the administrators being gun-shy about allowing teachers to require blogs as a course component. However, I still think that this is the wrong way to approach the problem. In my classes, I talk a lot about safety on the Internet. When my students were using Wordpress blogs for their blogs (I’ve now switched to the blog provided through Blackboard due to the rule changes) we talked about the username they chose, the name of their blog and the address they gave to the blog. I made sure that my students were aware of the potential dangers to setting up a “Janedoe.wordpress.com” address. We talked about the information they should and should not put into their About Me pages. But then we took the discussion a step farther.I did not limit the discussion to the class blog. I spent a week’s worth of class talking to my students about the perils of using their real name and information on the Internet. We created a game to play in class focused around who’s MySpace page was the safest.

These are the kind of things that we need to do with our students. If we make them aware of these dangers in real time learning experiences, then we have a chance at teaching them to be careful of the Internet as a whole. Banning blogs from the classroom is not the answer. We have to remember (as former students) the allure to books, movies, and other things that have been banned. But I think that Wes Fryer says it best:

Generally adults help young people learn to drive safely before giving them car keys and turning them loose on the streets of the world. Young people also need guidance and adult assistance to learn how to safely navigate the virtual environments of the 21st Century. Schools must be proactive, rather than merely defensive, in helping students acquire the skills of digital citizenship needed today and in the future. Simply banning read/write web tools on school networks is an inadequate response: Educators must strive to learn alongside students and parents how these technologies can be safely and powerfully used to communicate and collaborate (SafeDSN)

Seriously, if we expect students to know how to be safe on the Internet, can we expect this knowledge to be ingrained in them before they enter our classrooms? I don’t assume that my students have ever been taught the rules of plagiarism–even if they say they have. So why would I assume that somebody else had told them about Internet safety? Okay, off the soap box and onto the next reason.

Blog are disruptive to a student’s education.

Blogs are not educational.

Alright, I can see these arguments too and I’m going to tackle them together. Blogs can be disruptive to education. If Jane is posting her latest love poem to a crush on their blog instead of working on their Calculus homework. I’m willing to bet, though, that if the blog is for a class, we won’t see the love poem on that blog. So, I contend that we have to look at the difference in personal and educational blogs. I teach in a classroom that doubles as a computer lab during the off-periods. Students can get on these computers during class and surf their MySpace and their Facebook page. They can tweet about how boring my class is that day. Each of these means of communication is disruptive to the student’s education during my class. So, if the concern around blogs is that the tool is disruptive, why do the schools not block these other sites too? These sites are, at least in my class, more disruptive than blogs that I ask students to maintain. Why? Because when students blog on a class related blog, they are not disrupting the educational process, but rather furthering it.

Students are unaware that what they post online is available to anybody surfing the web.

So, while I think Jane’s love poem can be disruptive to her education, I must first ask if the poem Jane is blogging is on a blog for her creative writing class. If so, then the disruption to Calculus is still in the realm of education. If we cannot allow students to further their education through a means that engages them, how can we be educators?

What We Can Do

We cannot combat the problem with all of these issues on our own. But there is one thing that can be done to further facilitate the comprehension of administrators when it comes to blogs and other new medias. We cannot expect administrators to make the right decision if they are not informed on the advantages of these technologies. You know the feeling you get when you realize that your student knows more about the topic you’re teaching than you do? Do you remember how you feel about not knowing the answer to the question? Do you think that administrators may feel the same, especially in a world that automatically assumes that the higher your position of authority, the more you know? We need to sit down and talk to these administrators so that we can ascertain if the problems we’re encountering come from their lack of knowledge with blogs or from their refusal move into the digital age. If the administrator’s problem is lack of knowledge, then we, as teachers, need to take the first step to talk to the administrators about the rewards of blogs (and other medias). If you’re faced with an administrator who refuses to move into the digital age, try talking. If it doesn’t work, be patient, you never know what might happen.

If you haven’t already posted to Al Upton’s blog to support his students, do so. Together, we might change the mind of one administrator. I’m sending an email to my dean. She’s always proven rational in the past.

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This article is also featured on TheApple; join the conversation on privacy and Internet safety with other teachers in TheApple’s article discussion

As I experimented successfully with blogging in the classroom, I began contemplating it as a dissertation topic. When I found out I was teaching developmental writing this fall, I was enthused. I was waiting patiently for a chance to experiment with blogging at such an important level.

But then the other shoe dropped. We’ve been going through some “changes” in our department this semester. We have an enthusiastic and open-minded new director that can infuse some life into our FYC classes. We have a new common syllabus that we’re allowed some flexibility with. We have random new rules. And, apparently, we have security rules too. When all this newness began, I was polite enough to ask about using blogs in the class. Now, I did this because they have gone as far as telling us to refuse to answer emails sent from students using an email address not assigned to them through the school. It had to do with “privacy” and “security.” It doesn’t make sense to me. I usually use my Gmail account because no other server that I am familiar with allows me to 1)be alerted the minute I have email, 2)keep conversations together instead of having to sift through individual emails with the same topic and 3)allowed me to make my life as simple as 54 categories in one mailbox. But, I changed.

And, in addition to changing, I was polite enough to ask if I could use blogs. Yes, I know the saying “it’s easier to ask forgiveness than permission,” but I was being nice and trying, in the long run, to save my job.

So, a week later, I get an email back telling me that the word has come down the foodchain that no blogs can be used that are not hosted on the school server. Well, in essence, the school just said that I could not blog. Why? We have one way to access a blog–through Blackboard. Not that this would be a problem, but this aspect of Blackboard is currently only available to distance learning instructors. So, I’m left with no blog.

Okay, I can work with this. I have plans once we get through this semester. But what’s really bugging me–in much the same way that I was bothered with the fact that my students could watch YouTube videos in class but nowhere else on campus–is that the reason I have been forbidden to allow my students to use a blog in the classroom is apparently for their security.

Now, understand that when I emailed about this originally, I was clear to explain the safety to the blogsite I wanted to use–this one. I also explained how blogs could be set as private and all that jazz. But no, this site is not secure enough for the school. Okay, I can see them denying it. But there should be larger concerns if they’re going to play the security card. Facebook and Myspace are still available to students from their dorm rooms, computer labs, library and even from the computers they use in the classroom.

It’s starting to sound, to me, as though this is not a privacy issue, but rather a freedom issue. We were told when they required us to use only our school email (which we can’t even forward to another account that will allow us to answer back using the school email) that this was because they could keep the emails on the main server even if we deleted them. That way, if we needed them later, we could have access to them. I’m assuming that means that they can also read any of them at any time. And, by forcing students to use only school sponsored sites, they have the ability to censor anything we say. (In fact, you should check out the changes to my “About Me” page.)

All in all, it sounds like a nice big panopticon where the administration has the ability to quash our freedom of speech, invade our privacy and censor as they wish. If you will excuse me, there’s a link I need to delete from my page before I call it a night.