Connolly,+Barbara-Midterm

**Re: Proposal to unblock blogs**
====I have been taking a course this summer on Blogging and Wikis. I've learned some important ideas about infusing Web 2.0 more into our curriculum. I would like to propose that our district open up all blogs as sources of information and to allow Blogger as a possibility for class blogging and research. Right now all blogs are blocked by our filtering system. Even though students use the subscription databases for research, they are more likely to turn to the free web and use Google. When students (as well as faculty) do use Google for research, some really good information expert blogs is blocked. Students then have to get the information at home, which they sometimes do not do. If teachers want to use a particular blog for instructional purposes, they are unable to do so easily because of the blocking. While we have access to blogging on our school web site provided by Schoolwires, Blogger offers more functionality and the research possibilities are endless. Furthermore, using a service like Blogger is free and therefore will cost the district nothing to use. ====

====A blog is a personally created interactive web site where an author can post opinions, news, images, web links, videos, or any other type of information for others to peruse. The word “Blog” comes from the combination of the words web log ([|Wikipedia]). Each entry appears chronologically with the most recent at the top ([|Herzog]). People can comment and have a conversation about the posts. ====

====Ours students are already online and using social networking sites which essentially blogging web sites. According to the [|Pew Internet and American Life Project] 55% of teens are on some kind of social networking site such as Facebook or Myspace. Unblocking blogs will help students in several ways. Since students are already using these tools, it is up to teachers to help them use them efficiently and appropriately. In fact Alan November quotes Will Richardson as saying, “One of the reasons we fear these technologies isbecause we as teachers don’t yet understand them or use them. But the reality is that our students already do. It’s imperative that we be able to teach our kids how to use the tools effectively and appropriately because right now they have no models to follow (Coming of Age: An Introduction to the New Worldwide Web 29).” ====

====A teacher in Canada, [|Kathy Cassidy], addresses some of the concerns that teachers and administrators have about using blogging software including monitoring comments in this presentation. She describes how she has complete control over the web page and that even her first graders are blogging. One father living in another city commented that he could stay in touch with his daughter through her blog. Another teacher, Chris Burnett, who vowed never to use blogging after attending a workshop, became such a fan that she now teaches workshops on blogging in her district (Coming of Age: An Introduction to the New Worldwide Web 30). She believes that blogging has made her students more motivated because they are more responsible for their own writing and pay attention to producing quality work because they have an audience, which could be a global one. In fact, one of the authors the class read commented on their blog, which really excited her students. ====

====Another benefit to the district of blogging is focused on the learning of teachers or professional development. With his bold statement that schools are hostile to learning, especially for adults, Richard Elmore, an educational leadership professor at Harvard, pointed out the obvious to most practicing teachers around the country. Bill Ferriter in [|Learning with Blogs and Wikis] asserts “the few moments that we can steal for professional development are usually spent in sessions with experts pitching the latest silver bullet.” This type of professional development leaves teachers cold and they often just moan and “bring a stack of papers to grade” not realizing that professional development can be done differently. Ferriter argues that the new emphasis on collaboration and the new tools that support it can help improve professional development. He points to several blogs published by educators who grapple with common educational issues and the realities of the classroom. He states, “With the investment of a bit of time and effort, I've found a group of writers to follow who expose me to more interesting ideas in one day than I've been exposed to in the past 10 years of costly professional development. Professional growth for me starts with 20 minutes of blog browsing each morning, sifting through the thoughts of practitioners whom I might never have been able to learn from otherwise and considering how their work translates into what I do with students.” If our teachers have access to blogs, they can develop a network of their own favorite blogs to follow on a regular basis and again at no cost to the district for professional development. ====

====Since we already have the 1:1 laptop initiative in place and the technology committee provides turnkey training to the faculty for professional development, unblocking blogs will cost the district nothing and provide a rich environment to move ahead with our reading, writing, and technology school goals. Getting buy-in from those faculty members who use technology sporadically may be difficult but as more teachers and students use blogs in a variety of ways, they may become persuaded of the power of the technology and its results. I believe we should use Blogger because of its ease of use and functionality, especially the ability to find and follow other blogs on the site. Our Schoolwires blogging feature does not allow this kind of use. However, there are several other services that teachers should know about such as [|Edublogs], [|Wordpress], [|Scribblelive] and others that are also free. ====

====Alan November addresses some of the things that can go wrong with Web 2.0 and blogging: inappropriate comments, cyber-bullying, vandalism to the blog, inappropriate pictures, Internet predators, etc. Blogger allows the teacher to make the blog private, which would take care of outsiders stalking anyone. But allowing a global audience has its own pedagogical benefits. Anne Davis at the Georgia State University Education Department said it best regarding schools blocking blog web sites and not engaging in conversations about appropriate use: “Sometimes when I see all the stuff that is posted on blogs by teenagers I find myself wishing that someone had given them some guidance. Lots of them are just not thinking. We need to build these types of things into our discussions in our classrooms. I like to think that good teaching about responsible weblog use would help (Coming of Age: An Introduction to the New Worldwide Web 31).” Since, more and more students are using social networking sites and blogging on their own it is our educational responsibility to help students make the best possible digital impression on the world that we can by teaching appropriate use and how to stay safe. ====