Blog Blocks, Student Influence for Social Change, Edifying student bloggers

Ah, the joys of school district content filters.

Note the category / reason for this content filter block: Web Logs / Personal Pages. Unfortunately content filter policies like this which view all “blogs” as evil and inappropriate for anyone to access at school are quite common in the state of Oklahoma, from what I’ve seen. This is the reason we’ve created a recommended domain whitelist for professional development sessions for the Oklahoma Digital Centennial Project. That whitelist currently just includes a few blogs (and not any classroom blogs YET) but at least it includes some. Addressing this misperception was also a major goal of my talk at the K-12 Market Symposium at MacWorld a few weeks ago.

I think our best hope for constructively and positively changing adult perceptions about blogging will come from having our children and students regularly write on moderated CLASSROOM BLOGS open for public comments. NPR’s episode today, “Iran’s Pollution Worries Come by Air and Water” revealed that some Iranian government officials promoting environmental protection understand this. Kids have power to change perceptions in their families. The Iranian officials quoted in the NPR piece believe children have more power to shape the perceptions of their parents than the government does itself. Western businesses know this, just look at the ways they spend their marketing dollars. The purchasing power wielded by tweens / Gen X or Gen Y kids (choose your term) in many families is huge. We need to recognize this as evangelists for the appropriate use of educational technologies in schools. Our best advocates may be our students.

When a teacher establishes a safe, moderated classroom blogging environment using a tool like Class Blogmeister, s/he is not merely advancing the literacy development of students. The act of helping students safely blog over time in a moderated, public space tangibly advances a school reform agenda which includes changing adult perceptions of learning, especially as learning relates to and involves technology.

Mark Ahlness, Doug Noon, and other classroom teachers are leading the way with their alumni blogging sites for students as well as their current class blogs.

Got a few minutes to spare? Visit Mark’s current class blog and Doug’s class blog, as well as others on the support blogging wiki site, and EDIFY THOSE STUDENT BLOGGERS! In your comment let them know who you are and where you live, and what you find meaningful, worthwhile, and complimentable in one of their posts. This is not a “random act of kindness,” these are intentional, specific acts which have potential to make a positive impact on the lives of children living in other parts of the globe.

Do you know of other classroom teachers moderating “alumni blogs” for their students? I’d love to know who they are and what the links are to their alumni blogs.

Get to commenting and edifying! 🙂

Technorati Tags: blogging, education, educationreform, iran

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On this day..

• Facilitating Student eBook and Book Publishing with Book Creator and Lulu – 2020
• EdTech Situation Room on Wednesday Nights – 2016
• MinecraftEDU Tips: An iPad Narrated Slideshow Created with @HaikuDeck & @ExplainEvrythng – 2014
• OKC #wordpress Users Group Meetup Notes: Jan 2011 #okcwp – 2011
• Fotopedia Heritage for iPad #edapps – 2011
• Martin Institute’s Spring Feast Conference in Memphis: 3-4 Feb 2011 #micon – 2011
• Interactive Digital Native Map and the What’s Your Issue Videography contest – 2010
• Audio and Video Sync Problem with QuickTime Player 7 YouTube Upload – 2010
• PollEverywhere supports poll grouping – 2010
• Oklahoma Science PDI – 2008