A question of blogging...
It's not been too long since I had some questions about blogging and whether it was a good thing to do. You responded with so many amazingly positive comments that renewed my faith and made me more determined than ever to keep up this on-line family journal.
I had a phone call that same week from my daughters school. It was from a teacher who taught one of our kids last year. He is familiar with our family blog and it was blogging that he had rung me about. He has been asked to consider the idea of starting a school blog. It's a new area for him and he wanted my advice. He is going on a course to learn more about all the pros and cons of blogging within an educational system but his gut feeling is that it could be a fantastic resource for pupils, parents and friends of the school. If it goes ahead there will be many areas to consider, not the least of which would be safety. Whether to refer to specific events before they happen? Whether to have images of the school or the students? Whether to leave it open to the public or to password protect it?
The school that my kids used to go to in the UK has started a Year 6 blog. Year 6 is the final year in Primary school before moving on to High School. It is a public blog and allows comments and uses photos of the kids but only refers to them by initials.
I would be really interested in knowing if any of you have experience of a blog being used in a school setting. Maybe you are involved in the administration of one? Have you any tips or advice? Maybe you could leave a link in the comments section to a similar blog you know of. Maybe you just have some general tips on safe blogging. I'd love to hear them and will pass them on to the school to help them in their potential leap into this amazing blogosphere experience....
I don't know of any here... with such strict privacy concerns when it comes to students. Our schools all have websites but its informational with no pictures or stories of students. But, I will say I would have loved to see one when my kids were in school. One that told of school happenings, that promoted team work, and one that all could be involved with, if they choose to do so. So sad that we live in a world where we have to be so cautious, but that is our reality. I wish him luck! P.S. If I could, I would send more than a to-go container of snow!!
I like the sounds of this, let us know how you go and if he does start a blog and i might suggest the idea to our little school. They will probably love the idea and get me to do it lol.
I do not know of one, either, but it sounds like a lot of fun! But yes, I agree with the privacy concerns. I wish the world was safer so these were not such great concerns, don't you? But I think initials would be fine as the other school has done. I read other blogs who only use nicknames or initials for their family's names. I've used our names, but I try not to be specific about which town we live in. (and now I'm rambling!) Hope it works out great!
The school system in my area has web sites that lists coming events....it is basically public knowledge because it is also listed in newspapers and sometimes on the signs in front of the schools.
As far as the kids being on the site...I do have to sign a required document each new school year indicating if my child may or may not appear on the web site. Kind of like a permission slip I suppose. They don't publish names, just images.