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

_____________________________________________________________________

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

_____________________________________________________________________

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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Whenever I've taught online journalism, or other forms of specifically online communication, I make my students blog - specifically to make them aware of the public nature of what is published on the web. I set up a blog for them in the class name using a tool like blogger and ask them to post ... using an alias, or student number, or whatever name THEY choose on any topic they like. Then I make them search for their blog posts, then I make them contact a friend and ask them whether they could find the blog post by searching. It's all public because the purpose is to teach them about publicity ... and its consequences. On occasion I have had to point out to them that blogging the time, date and address of their next party is particularly dumb ... and delete the blog at the end of each course. :-) This teaches them a lot about the value of selecting words carefully, about inter-linking, social navigation and a heap of other New Media stuff. It's a very powerful teaching tool. Some are motivated to continue for whatever reason, some couldn't care less. Occasionally, I've been personally embarassed at what they've posted but I wouldn't change the teaching tool for an instant ... Cheers, Hughie ----- Original Message ----- From: "Alex Halavais" <alex@halavais.net> To: <air-l@listserv.aoir.org> Sent: Friday, March 16, 2007 11:33 PM Subject: Re: [Air-l] is this ethical?

On 3/16/07, Jill Walker <jill.walker@uib.no> wrote:

...

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.

Motivation in the classroom is complicated, but one of the reasons I regularly have students blog, and blog in public, is precisely because it provides for intrinsic forms of motivation to learn. I guess I've been lucky, and have always had pretty overwhelmingly positive responses to blogging.

For it to work, I think students need to understand that it is important to you (and to their grade). This at least provides the initial impetus to put time into understanding what blogging is and how it works. For many of my classes, the vast majority of the grade in the class is based on individual blogs.

But once that initial introduction is complete, I find that students are motivated to write when they believe that more than just their instructor or TA will be reading what they are writing. Much of that motivation comes of having their peers be able to read what they are thinking, but many are also encouraged by the idea that they might have a wider audience. In many cases, I make gathering such an audience an explicit part of the evaluation: if you can demonstrate engaging in a cross-blog conversation with others in the class or outside of the class, I think this represents the best sort of learning through blogs. Kevin Lim and Derek Lackaff have taken this a step further this semester, offering "awards" for the student blogs that get the greatest exposure (cf http://com125.wordpress.com/awards/).

- Alex

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Really? I would say that it's a darned good example of teaching. I work in a student service area, and believe me it's kilometres away from teaching. Like Hughie I resist the ideas of students as consumers in the classroom. Sure they are 'serviced' by the university, and its processes and procedures should treat them as consumers. The online learning system, the library, their access to their results or the internet are ways that the university supports them in their education. Their education is something they work out for themselves in conjunction with the teaching staff. M-H On 17/03/2007, at 1:26 AM, James Whyte wrote:

I would say that you have given a darned good example of you "serving" your students (customers)

James

Hugemusic <hmusic@ozemail.com.au> wrote: Whenever I've taught online journalism, or other forms of specifically online communication, I make my students blog - specifically to make them aware of the public nature of what is published on the web. I set up a blog for them in the class name using a tool like blogger and ask them to post ... using an alias, or student number, or whatever name THEY choose on any topic they like. Then I make them search for their blog posts, then I make them contact a friend and ask them whether they could find the blog post by searching.