meL’s Word

I know, here it is day 5 of the challenge and this is my first post – “slacker”???

Not really.  Here are the challenges thus far:

1. What does your “About” page say about you?” – I added to mine, tried to make it a little more informative.  No, you won’t learn everything about me, but you should get some idea of what drives me.
2. Check into your site traffic – where does it come from, all that jazz.  I did add a Geotracker badge so I can at least see a map of where folks come from.  If it starts getting pins other than mine (grin) I’ll work more on site traffic info
3. Thank those that have inspired you.  I did that – sent an email to to Steve Dembo himself, and also to Karl Fisch (The Fischbowl).  These are the two blogs that I really follow and they are probably the main reasons I blog myself
4. Establish a Creative Commons license for your content- haven’t done this yet.
5. Globalize your blog – provide global visitors a means to translate your blog.  Maybe one day.  I’d be happy with a few local visits!

So, I have been following the challenge, just not all of it is visible to the public. 

That is the question

Here are the two sides:

1. Students can’t be trusted, they might write something they shouldn’t so we need to approve every post before someone else sees it.
2. We have to give the students some degree of trust.  They are entitled to an opinion and they need to voice it.  Set reasonable guidelines and boundaries and they will be okay.

Me, I believe in the second one.  If you are trying to use this realm as a class project, you have to give students some freedom.  For me, trying to work with a queue is too restrictive – might as well not bother.  I truly believe if you set rules and stick to them (just like class rules) the students will do just fine.  Let them know from the “get go” this is a priveledge, they can be given a different assignment if they don’t follow the rules.  I have heard great success stories of students finding a voice when presented with this type of forum in which to speak.  The shy, the timid, the student who stutters – all become equal in the Web.