I also make my students blog in public - although like Doug, I've come to the conclusion that blogging doesn't work well with unmotivated students. Having said that I *have* had very successful blogging semesters with students, so I don't think that "it doesn't work" is the whole answer - perhaps I did a better job of showing them the point and thus helping them become internally motivated in the successful semester. Anyway, I do strongly believe that if you're going to do blogging in class, it should be public because that's the only way they're going to learn network literacy - you don't learn how society works by staying locked up in a room. It's really astounding how UN-public traditional academic studies (liberal arts, sciences) are compared to other disciplines. If you study music you give public concerts - even as a child just taking lessons once a week you have to deal with performing in public at regular intervals. If you study art you can't really dodge the public exhibitions. If you study dance or theatre, you perform in public. School children put on plays and so on for parents and often other people in the community several times a year. My friend who's studying to be a priest had to "perform" a funeral service the other day - in public, obviously. Really it's quite bizarre that liberal arts and social sciences students are supposed to write for NO AUDIENCE - term papers just for the teacher? Why? If it's not unethical that a ten-year-old who takes violin lessons is expected to perform at public concerts, why would it be unethical that a twenty-year-old student is expected to write a public blog? There are some caveats. Because of the searchability of the internet, I tell my students to use pseudonyms or just first names, and I make sure they know how public their words can be. I also tell them that they need to learn to deal with this public world and the ways people use it. I wrote a paper about my experience with blogging and teaching and how important I think the public aspects of it are with more examples: Walker, Jill. 2005. "Weblogs: Learning in Public." On the Horizon 13 (2). 112-118. http://www.emeraldinsight.com/Insight/viewContentItem.do? contentType=Article&hdAction=lnkpdf&contentId=1509888&dType=SUB or you can read a pre-print in my university's open access archive: https://bora.uib.no/handle/1956/1841 Jill ---- Jill Walker Associate Professor, Dept of Humanistic Informatics, University of Bergen, Norway http://jilltxt.net
I can't speak to this particular use, but I will say that when I've had my students use blogs to record and discuss the issues raised in our classes, I've made sure that they understand that their words are public (part of the point of class-based blogging) and that the authors they are responding to may in fact read their responses.
Having said that, though, I did find that blogging as a practice is really not successful unless internally motivated (so I've stopped doing it for my classes, although we do read and discuss blog writing).
But in terms of ethics -- in what sense would this be unethical? If the instructor asked students to blog without making sure they understood their activities as public, I could see this as problematic (and pedagogically unsound). If the instructor did explain that this is the case and asked students to be cognizant of the relationship of their expression to the world outside the classroom, then I would not see an ethical infringement here.
Plus, you could comment on their posts. ;)
Doug
Barry Wellman wrote:
I have Google Alert set to identify anything online that mentions my name. (I want to know who is talking about me and perhaps learn from their comments.)
Recently, I have been disturbed because Google Alert keeps popping up Blogspot entries that clearly come from class blog entries.
While I am happy that folks are reading my stuff, I am aghast that their entries are on the web for all to read. (Altho I smile that they say nice things.)
I know that I don't post my students' term papers on the web [I only give 'em to Turnitin;-)], but this strikes me as an even greater invasion of the students' privacy. Shouldn't such within-class stuff be password protected?
I'm putting one innocuous example up below my .sig, but I've encountered at least four others.
Barry Wellman
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Barry Wellman S.D. Clark Professor of Sociology NetLab Director Centre for Urban & Community Studies University of Toronto 455 Spadina Avenue Toronto Canada M5S 2G8 fax:+1-416-978-7162 wellman at chass.utoronto.ca http://www.chass.utoronto.ca/~wellman for fun: http://chass.utoronto.ca/oldnew/cybertimes.php
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3) What was "Netville" in the suburbs of Toronto? Why's it important in relation to the paradox argument?
This was written buy our good friend Barry wellman again ( jokes) . The Netville in the suburbs was looking at the internet as a part of how it structures the community life if it hinders and brings people closer together within the community environment.
http://www.chass.utoronto.ca/~wellman/publications/neighboring/ neighboring_netville.pdf
It looks at how the internet is effecting community life whereby it is leading people away from the enclosures of the community social life by now engaging on the internet for their social activity or on the other hand is this use of the internet bringing the community closer together as a whole.
With relation to the paradox this is where the argument fell that the influence of the internet has decreased the social interaction within the community. This study looks at how the internet supports weaker ties within the community helps mend bridges and bring the community closer together but still looking it as a context rather than the paradox by stating the negative side.
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