Gag order on stude blogging
March 30, 2005From the Rutherland Herald:
Officials at Proctor Jr.-Sr. High School have banned access
from school computers to an Internet site that students have been using
to post to weblogs, or blogs.Principal Chris Sousa said the decision to block the site from school
was made because blogging is not an educational use of school computers.
Of course, the students can still blog elsewhere, but it seems the main
concern of the school officials is the security aspect of students’
posting information online.
A valid concern, but I don’t think that altogether banning/blocking
blog servers is a sensible idea. And the claim that blogs and
blogging are not educational should be taken with the proverbial grain
of salt. Blogs and blogging can indeed
serve an educational purpose. For instance, authoring online
journals can help improve writing and comprehension skills, and not to
mention communication skills. In a previous post,
I wrote on a blogger whose professor encouraged the class to maintain
online journals to help improve writing skills. Personally, I
would think that my writing style and skills had improved and developed
since I started blogging. Practice makes perfect, after all.
Blocking blog servers is not exactly the best way to secure students
against unwittingly disclosing sensitive and personal
information. Educating the students against the risks of such
activities is a better solution, IMHO.
Got a link to this article via Niall Kennedy’s blog.
Previous Comments
Greetings Jangelo…This is not good when educators themselves prevent their students from doing something as eloquent as blogging, wherein education should lead to more freedom of expression and ideas and not ever to any repression. I even believe that blogging should be part of our modern curriculum that every student should be urged to make as a thesis, in such courses as journalism, philosophy and political science.
Posted by Major Tom at March 31, 2005, 2:15 amStranger than sympathy, My side is with you Major Tom!
Posted by Jolo at March 31, 2005, 7:28 pmBlogging as I said in my previous post is a great teaching tool for student and teacher collaboration. In a school environment however it has to be restricted to educational stuff, within the confines of the school, similar to the intranet concept. It is but common sensical to optimize the use of the school's more often than not, limited network resources and not allow students to foray into the net for blogs that are entertainment and personal in nature! Distraction can affect the student's performance big time. If you can't contain the access within your school campus then it would be better to restrict it totally.
Posted by BW at April 1, 2005, 1:52 amAll comments are moderated. Your comments will not appear here unless approved by the blog owner. Thank you.
I agree that blogging can be educational but how can schools prevent students from posting strictly educational stuff? Talk about big time distraction if they start blogging on personal issues during library time! I don't think we must approach the issue with the likes of the "drink responsibly" attitude. First and foremost there is an extremely high probability that high school student blogging activities are personal in nature and has nothing to do with school - so why gamble and invite distraction?
Posted by BW at March 31, 2005, 12:02 am