Thoughts on the "That's Online Writing..." Article
What really stuck out for me in the article is the knee-jerk reaction of the administration to the child posting about his home location. What a great learning opportunity that could have been! Instead, the students didn't learn anything about a very important topic--online safety. There are technological solutions that would have made the blogs private to the participants, meaning that the blogging could continue but a predator would not have been able to read them.
I was impressed that the teacher was willing to include an adult from outside the classroom, in this case a soldier. Even though he was a parent of one of the students, not every teacher is willing to open up teaching processes to outsiders, who might not understand. I do wonder if the teacher would have been willing to open the blogs up to all the parents of the participating children.
I have had a blog for several years, mostly as a sort of journal for myself. Unfortunately, several people "followed" me (it didn't occur to me to make it a private blog) and now when I post I feel as though I have to write for an audience. My blog was originally created as a way for me to keep a record of lesson plans, preschool activities, and resources I didn't want to lose. It was a searchable resource for things I wanted to track to reuse in the classroom later. Now that I've gone back to school I'm only updating my blog sporadically as I catch up on my backlog of activities. Soon, I won't really have new material for the preschool set and I'll probably end that blog and start something new. As the blog wasn't really about ME but rather about a topic I feel it makes more sense to abandon it.
Me, the Creative Writer
I hate to admit it, but I have always hated creative writing in school. I don't feel that I'm very good at it and I feel a little lost in how to work with children on their creative writing.
