Elementary+Language+Arts+Blog+(Sue,+Karisti,+Sarah,+Caroline)

by Sue, Karisti, Sarah, and Caroline
Your fourth grade class has been blogging for about two months now. They have shared several writing projects on their class blogs, including revisions of some short stories with illustrations. To protect your students’ identities, all students use only their first name and first letter of their last names (e.g., Kayla F., Joseph R.) Your students have commented on each others blogs, and a few parents and other teachers have added comments as well. Your students have become accustomed to this feedback from your internal audience. Today, one of your students, Aaron, asked you about a comment on his blog. Someone complimented him on his story but Aaron doesn’t recognize the name. You review the comment and the link provided, and it appears to be someone from Canada doing educational research. Aaron asks what he should do next.
 * Scenario:**

1. Address this as a teachable moment. Use this as an opportunity to remind students about the prevalence of the Internet and how exciting it is that they're writing for a real audience. Also, discuss the importance of keeping personal information private and not communicating with strangers. Students should always notify the teacher of any strange situations, such as in this case.
 * Final group response:**

2. Follow-up. If students haven't been responding to other comments, don't have Aaron reply to this one. If students have been responding to other comments, perhaps have him reply with a simple "Thank you." As the teacher, search to try and find out if the person is legitimate (blog, references, association with a research company, etc.) before any other communication is allowed.

3. Communicate. Just to keep open communication with parents, let them know about what happened and how it was handled.

Sue's thoughts: Thanks for going first Caroline! I think because I teach high school I'd tend to simply blow off the whole thing and tell Aaron to ignore a post from someone he doesn't know, but I guess that is kind of ruining the whole point of blogging isn't it? I too see this "incident" as a valuable teaching time for all the students. I would bring the post more into the light, similar to Caroline's ideas; have Aaron follow up, check out the email, find out for sure the post is legit. If it is indeed someone from Canada doing ed research, wow! The class must have some nifty ideas rolling on their blog, and they should feel proud. However, I guess I'd want to urge caution also, and remind students how important it is to notify their instructor (who should be on top of new blog commentary right?) of any "strange" posters to the blog, and how important keeping personal identity information OFF the site is. I think it would be important to include Aarons parents in the loop as the comment was explored in more depth.

Karisti's thoughts: I would tell Aaron to take the comment as he takes all other comments. It is cool that someone from far away is reading his blog too! If I haven't asked the students to respond to anyone else's comment, I probably wouldn't have him respond to "Mr. Canada". I would also use this as an opportunity to remind students about the public nature of the Internet. Plus, it is great to reinforce the open communication between the students and teachers/parents about what is on their blog - comments included! I know is a hypothetical situation - but I also think the reponse would be dependent on what the comment said. Was it praising the blog? Asking for more information? If it were probing for information, I would be much more cautious about the comment.

Sarah's thoughts: I would keep in mind that this is only a fourth grade class, and the main focus of the blogs is for students to share their writing with others. Since all the comments up until this point have been “internal” (i.e. other classmates, friends, family, etc.), I would approach this with caution but look at it as a learning opportunity. I would speak to the class about the widespread nature of the Internet and why it’s important to be careful. To address Aaron’s question, I would tell him to reply with a simple “Thank you” and maybe pose a question to the person. I would make sure Aaron wasn’t sharing any personal information and communicate with his parents about this situation.

Caroline's thoughts: I would tell Aaron that this is the exciting part about Web 2.0--people from across the world can read and respond to our work, and we can read and respond to their work. I would then ask Aaron to follow up with the commenter. If he or she has a blog, Aaron should check it out and comment on a few of the posts. If he or she does not have a blog, Aaron can respond to the comment with another blog post on his blog. This is a great opportunity to expand Aaron's learning community, and he should do what he can (while still being safe and without releasing any personal information) to encourage future contact.