Blogging Dos and Don't

1. Students using blogs are expected to act safely by keeping personal information out of their posts. Do not post or give out your family name, password, user name, email address, home address, school name, city, country or other information that could help someone locate or contact you in person. However, you may share your interests, ideas and preferences.

2. Students using blogs should share their user name or password with anyone besides their teachers and paren and agree to never log in as another student.

3. Students using blogs are expected to treat blogspaces as classroom spaces. Speech that is inappropriate for class is not appropriate for your blog. But students are welcome to post on any school-appropriate subject.

4 If you receive a comment on your Blog that makes you feel uncomfortable or is not respectful, tell your professor right away. Do not respond to the comment.

5. Do not attack personally fellow students, employees, authors, customers, vendors, or shareholders. You may disagree with the school and its officers, provided your tone is respectful and you do not resort to personal attacks.

6. Do post any material that is obscene, defamatory, profane, libelous, threatening, harassing, abusive, hateful or embarrassing to another person or any other person or entity. Also, do not to post advertisements, solicitations and/or market and/or promote any business or commercial interest, chain letters or pyramid schemes.

7. Be careful not to violate copyright laws. If you are not sure is that reference is copyrighted, contact your professor before posting the material to your Blog.

Blogs, Wikis, Podcasts and Other Powerful Web Tools for Classrooms by Will Richardson

Hi Everyone:

I recently delivered a presentation on energizing the classroom using various Web 2.0 tools.. I used Will Richardson's book, "Blogs, Wikis, Podcasts, and Other Powerful Web Tools for Classrooms" as a guide to get started in using social software for education. The book provides a clear definition of WebLogs, Wikis, RSS, The Social Web, Podcasting and other Web 2.0 Tools that can offer students a dynamic online experience at low cost using established, largely free software tools.

The following were especially relevant to my presentation:

WebLogs that provide a good way for students to collaborate with people inside and outside the classroom.
RSS, which Will calls the New Killer App for Education
Wikis that provide easy collaboration.
The Social Web: Learning Together
Podcasting and Screencasting.

These Web 2.0 tools are described clearly and are supported by many examples. The last chapter details the meaning of social software for educators by describing what he calls the "Big Shifts" (the first Big Shift:Open Content)

I would recommend this book for anyone interested in Web 2.0 and its application to education. The only caveat is that some of the examples are outdated.