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

Then, after finishing my M.A. and moving on to a new university to pursue my Ph.D. and teach, I discovered that my students were a lot less receptive to the idea. I diligently provided my information to the students, but of the 60 students I taught this time, only about 5 sent me friend invitations. After the first few weeks, I assumed that the students were just not going to add me as a friend until it got closer to their essay’s due date. But, as the semester progressed and I added no more than students to my friends list, I began to wonder just why there was such a change. So at the end of the semester, I sat down with my students and asked them about this. I was in for a new discovery.

The students had wanted to use the Virtual Office Hours, but could not. Many of these students did not own their own computers. This, I realized, was the luxury of working at a private school where each student was packed off to college with a shiny new laptop. In the world of public education, few students get new laptops or even have computers at the school. I still did not understand this problem. I teach at a university that literally oozes technology. Students have access to about 6 computer labs and 2 cyber labs, a library that allows students laptops with wireless internet, multiple computer classrooms (including the one I taught in), and various computer kiosks around campus. So, I could not see why not having a computer in the dorm room was a problem. Since I required students to turn in their assignments via email, I knew that they were finding computer access somewhere. But then the students opened my eyes.

“We can’t download software onto the computers.”

That posed a bit of a problem. So, I walked away at the end of this Fall semester curious about how I could go about re-implementing Virtual Office Hours for the entire class. The following Spring semester, I tried Blackboard’s Virtual Office. But I had little success. It was not that the students were not using the Virtual Office, but Blackboard automatically logs you out after a pre-determined amount of time. Unfortunately, it also does not tell you that it has logged you out.

Then, I found Meebo. With Meebo, I found a solution that my students could use without having to download any software. They could use the site from any computer on campus and never had to do more than log into the site. My students love it. So, I want to pass this information on to you about not only how to use Meebo for Virtual Hours, but also how to set up Virtual Hours so that you and your students get the most out of these hours.

Two Different Ways to Use Meebo

From the Website

To use Meebo from the website, all you have to do is log in with an instant messenger account. It’s that simple. If you prefer, you can set up a separate account through Meebo so that you can manage multiple accounts through a single login. If you provide your students with various Instant Messenger preferences, this is the way to go. Once you create an account, you can log in and add your other accounts to this one. It works like an online version of Trillion or Adm.

From Your Course Homepage or Blog

The other way to use Meebo is to sign up for a meebo account and then get the widget to put a Meebo box on your class website or blog. You’ll notice off to the right of this entry is a Meebo box. This is a simple widget that you get from the Meebo website. You can put it on any site that allows you to add HTML to the site. To be seen as online on your website, you still need to log in to Meebo. If you’re running Firefox they have a plug in that allows you to log in while bypassing the actual site.

A Few Guidelines for Initiating Virtual Hours

Since creating a means for students to access you during your Virtual Hours, let me also share with you a few things that I have learned about setting up Virtual Hours over the past few years.

Do

• Be Flexible. Remember that your students have lives. If you consistently set up virtual hours weeknights between 4 and 9 p.m. then you are putting students who have a part time job in a bind. On the other hand, if you only set up weekends, you’re putting those students who work weekends or spend their weekends with their family in a bind. So be flexible; choose a night or two during the week and a few hours over the weekend that you can feasibly stay close enough to your computer to answer an occasional student question.

• Be Consistent. Set up a plan for Virtual Hours at the beginning of the semester. If you want to be available to your students every week, then make that commitment. Make sure, though, that you are available at the hours you said you would be. If, however, you decide that you only want to maintain Virtual Hours when students are finishing up a major assignment, make sure that you let these students know a week or two in advance (and I recommend email as well as verbal notice) that you are having Virtual Hours. Remind them of days and times.

• Set Guidelines. Make your students aware of things that you simply will not accept during Virtual Hours. These are best presented on the handout that you provide to students with your contact information. This way, everything is there together. Here are a few of my rules.
  • Do not IM me to ask what was done in class when you were not there.
  • Do not use text message language in the Virtual Office setting. Please, use plain English.

• Keep a Log of Pet Peeves. Trust me, after a few weeks of Virtual Hours you will have discovered several things that bother you. You will want to add these to the list for your next group of students (or at the least address them with that group).

Do Not

• Do Not Be Unrealistic. It’s easy to think that if you’re at your computer all day Saturday, you can just set up an all-day marathon of Saturday hours. Inevitably, something will come up on Saturday that must be done before the end of the day. Make sure that you give yourself time to prepare for these problems.

• Do Not Be Shy with Rule Breakers. If a student breaks the rules that you have set up with the Virtual Hours, do not hesitate to end the conversation and (if need be) block the user. Remember, the Virtual Office is an extension of your own office. Don’t put up with anything there that you would not put up with in the classroom or in the office.

• Do Not Give Up Mid-Semester. If the Virtual Hours are not working for you, wait until the end of the semester to stop using them. It’s just bad form to quit in the middle of the semester.

If I can clarify anything in this post (or if you wish for me to post a step-by-step guide to using Meebo on your homepage, please let me know.

Happy Techno-Teaching!

Because technology has increased the intensity and complexity of literate environments, the twenty-first century demands that a literate person possess a wide range of abilities and competencies, many literacies. These literacies—from reading online newspapers to participating in virtual classrooms—are multiple, dynamic, and malleable. As in the past, they are inextricably linked with particular histories, life possibilities and social trajectories of individuals and groups. Twenty-first century readers and writers need to

• Develop proficiency with the tools of technology
• Build relationships with others to pose and solve problems collaboratively and cross-culturally
• Design and share information for global communities to meet a variety of purposes
• Manage, analyze and synthesize multiple streams of simultaneous information
• Create, critique, analyze, and evaluate multi-media texts
• Attend to the ethical responsibilities required by these complex environments

(NCTE “Toward A Definition of 21st-Century Literacies)

I applaud NCTE for the bold step to include technology in the definition of literacy. This is a step that we need in order to further the literacy of our next generation. Generation X found themselves pioneers of the Internet, and I already see my students (Gen-Net maybe) as pioneers on the Internet. I learned about Facebook, Myspace, Twitter and I think even YouTube through my students. I think it is wonderful that they are aware of these popular sites. But I think that before we can see such a shift in the definition of literacy, we need to first see a shift in the education of the teachers expected to accomplish this task.

I’ve been thinking this for quite a while, but I have not ventured to put it into writing because I was not sure how to go about discussing this change. So what finally fueled the fire? Will Richardson’s recent post on Weblogged. In this post, he raises this question:

[H]ow in god’s name can we talk seriously about 21st Century skills for kids if we’re not talking 21st Century skills for educators first? (URGENT: 21st Century Skills for Educators (and Others) First )

So Will got me thinking about it. The comments on this post (there are over 100 at this writing and the dialogue is ongoing) got me contemplating the topic. The comments represent many divergent voices–those who want to see reform in education policy, those who are using technologies on their own, and those who are using technology in their classrooms as well as their personal lives. But what really got me thinking was after reading this post and the comments, I had a colleague mention to me that she was really excited about an upcoming presentation I’m doing on using blogs in First Year Composition. This was a presentation I did for the first time last year and one that I was asked to do again. Since I’ve now been blogging for over a year, blogs are kind of an “old” technology for me. But what she said resonated within my mind.

Teachers are hungry to use technology in their classrooms. But they don’t. While part of this lack of usage stems from problems with education reform that emerges from administrators and education boards not fully understanding the technologies themselves, another part of teachers not using technology in the classroom comes from the simple fact that they don’t know how to use the technologies, let alone how to incorporate these technologies into their classrooms. In some cases, the teachers don’t know about the technologies at all. I’m not kidding. You should have seen the look on my face when one of my students asked if I “tweeted.” I was dumbfounded and had no idea what she was talking about and I consider myself in the know about technologies. If we are going to be the teachers who use the technologies in our classroom, we have to become proactive in learning these technologies.

But this post is not intended to be a soapbox. If you’re reading this post, you are obviously aware of the presence of blogs in our everyday life. Take a minute and ask yourself what technologies you are well versed in. Have you posted to YouTube? Do you use PowerPoint to aid in your lectures? What other technologies do you use? Do you have a Twitter account? Make a list. When you have your list made, consider your colleagues. Do they know these technologies? Do they know how they can use them in the classroom? Is there a technology that you know one of your colleagues knows that you would like to be familiar with? Now, instead of waiting for somebody to put together a workshop on one of these technologies, consider creating your own workshop. Think about it. You’re a teacher. You know these technologies. Is there really a difference in teaching what you know about Google Earth to your colleagues and teaching it to your students? Within your own school you can create a technology club (much like a book club, except that instead of reading a book a month, you experiment with a technology each month). Get together as a group and discuss the technologies and how you could use these to aid your teachers. This is exactly what I’m doing with the colleagues I know are interested in using the technology but don’t know how. Sure, you may have to wait for education reform to allow you to use these technologies, but if you start using them, you can readily become one of the advocates who aids in getting the reforms to education that we need to teach these technologies to our students.

To give you a head start, I’ll be uploading materials from each of my workshops to this blog. I know that I can easily upload the notes and handouts here. I have permission from my group to upload a Podcast of our discussions, so I’ll provide more information on the location of these items when we begin. Be patient. Our goal is to do a workshop a month. However, remember that we are all doctoral students, so there may be couple of dry months throughout the year.

As always, feel free to comment to the blog if there is anything that you want to see covered. If it’s not a technology I’m familiar with, I’ll explore it and post as soon as I’m comfortable with teaching this information.

Happy Techno-Teaching

Katt

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

In “Technology and Literacy Education in the Next Century.” the authors argue that technological literacy should be incorporated into the classroom as a standard in education to better prepare students for the new millennium workplace. Arguing that students are preparing for a more technologically-centric world and should be better prepared to enter this workplace with a better understanding of the key concepts to digital literacy, Labbo, Reinking, and McKenna explore the key concepts of digital literacy as they relate to technological trends in the workplace and the responsibility of instructors to prepare students to enter the real world with a better understanding of these technologies. Through the demand that students be prepared with these technological literacies, it is apparent that the authors address this article to technologically hesitant instructors. Demonstrating the ways that technological literacy has become essential to the workplace, and providing methods for incorporating technology into traditional lessons, the authors’ purpose of aiding these technologically hesitant instructors in teaching technology in their classrooms reveals itself.

So about now you’re thinking that these are all just badly worded pictures, right? And at about the same time, some small businesses around the country are blushing at their bad word choice, right?

Now, obviously, it wouldn’t take a rocket scientist to realize the humor that emerges from the irony in these pictures. Anybody can do this. Take Emmalene, for example. She has done an excellent job of proving to us that the art of rhetoric is nurtured as early as high school. How so? Watch the video and see for yourself.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ds5y28gZWcU]

So if a high schooler can analyze language well enough to do this video, what does that say about the rest of the world? Sure, you have to have internet access, but the wave of the future (and today) is the internet. Don’t believe me? Take a look at “The Machine is Us/ing Us” and its subsequent popularity:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6gmP4nk0EOE]

The video itself is a simplified explanation of Web 2.0. But as the video points out, Web 2.0 is our future. So lets rethink this idea that the only degree that should be considered is in Business. How many business courses teach Aristotle’s Rhetoric? How many teach the fine art of persuasion in multiple forms? While I have no problem with business degrees, they can never completely cover those things that all the other departments cover within their degree. I would wager that if the man with whom I was conversing the other day were to begin advertising for his business via a webpage, he would consult an advertising agency (who utilize the same concepts we rhetoricians use) so that he would not end up with the same problem as those pictured above. While I will not deny that capital is a wonderful tool to have when entering the “real world,” I hold true to the view that there is nothing in the world as powerful as language. Language, my friends, can be manipulated with the proper rhetoric to get a point across in a more effective way. So to my “business oriented” acquaintance, I hope that should you fail to realize the inherent power of words that your business would create an advertisement that ends up in my mailbox one day. Keep in mind that I’m starting my own collection of rhetorical bloopers in advertising.