Public and private blogging have their advantages and disadvantages.
When you want to document private thoughts then you have a great place to put your own words-I love the comparison to a diary with the virtual key. Students that are writing or fellow teachers that have work to share and comment upon would benefit from hearing from other bloggers. They could adjust their writing, possible edit some future comments and learn from constructive comments. What a great way to share literature, workshop topics, as well as
personal thoughts.
Student blogs are great, especially for those children who are working at a level above others.
They can write at their speed, take in others' ideas and respond to teacher comments.
Students can learn about so many topics and learn to share their thoughts quickly and carefully as they write their own words. Here is where some danger exists as students write things and submit them without thinking through to who is reading and responding, especially if the words are critical of others.
At the edubloggercon preconference day at ISTE this year, I was in a discussion about public and Private blogs. When one person said that his blogs are private, another person (himself a blogger) said, "Then they're not blogs."
ReplyDeleteI liken it to this: What's the difference between a private blog,and printing a Word document out and taping it to the wall in your classroom? Just because you're using a blogging tool doesn't make it blogging, any more than driving a race car up and down your driveway is racing. :-)
What do you think?