Blog Safety

As teachers, we can do something to guarantee our kids a safety weblog.

1. Make sure students use private settings to protect their personal information. Make sure that they do not share information with strangers online, such as their full names, home address, phone number, phone numbers of parents and friends, and credit card information.

2. Tell students do not share schedules about where they are or will be on blogs if they are alone or will be alone.

3. Blogs are places that the students tend to let their guard down. Share with students the importance of not telling everyone exactly what they are doing, or do on a regular basis through their blog. Encourage them instead to stick to “social” information, such as music, movie and other wide spread interests.

4. Establish rules for online use with your kids and be diligent.

5. Save the Web address of your child's blog and review it on a regular basis.

6. Check out other blogs to find positive examples for your kids to emulate.For more information, please take a look at Be a Good Digital Citizen: Tips for Teens and Parents

Using Blogs in Teaching

It's a very creative idea to use blogs in teaching. I have never experienced it before neither as a student or as a teacher. Actually, in China, teachers do not encourage students to use blogs because they think students, especially young kids, do not have a good control of their deeds. They may spend too much time surfing on the internet, playing online games and so on. However, after reading the first 3 chapters, I found that blogs can be very helpful in teaching.

First of all, blogs can be an online filing cabinet.students have all of their works organized in one place makes for great opportunities for reflection. Students can look back over their work to see the improvement they have achieved. I love to trace back my previous posts to see how naive I was and how silly I used tobe. Also, students can see and give comments on others' posts, which is more convenient for students learning from others' work on blogs than in tranditional paper work ways.

Second of all, blogs expand the walls of the classroom. Students can discuss and chat with group members by comment on their posts or by online chatting rooms. Students can share pictures, texts audio and vedio materials via weblogs, which is hard to achieve in clasroom settings.

Last but not least, blogs can help develop students' expertise in one particular field. Students who blog in psychological healthy fucus their reading and writing on this topic and students blog in TESOL materials and nethods would collect many teaching activities and practical stategies.

In sum, blogs can be a tool for teachers to deliver their curriculum. It can improve students' learning if used in a proper way.