Blogging Basics Part 6 - Nots

I'm taking a break from building an ePortfolio to demo to a group here in the faculty and I came across two interesting posts on blogging - what to, or not to do. The first comes by way of Will Richardson by way of weblogg-ed and the second, which actually inspired the first is by Anne over at EduBlog Insights. Anne, brings out the point that "nots" are good. They draw the lines for what should bound content, but the flip side, what to do is also needed. What is needed is the humble curiosity to explore the ideas of your own and others and the ability to enjoy learning from what you write and what others have written - or said in 'casts. In exploring this, hopefully people will appreciate their own humanity and the humanity of others. There are a couple of comments right now on Will's site. One of them strikes me a bit oddly. The poster says: As a district technologist and administrator, I recommend we block places like MySpace.com, Blogger, and other commercial sites that MAY be used by students outside the control of School Districts. And, that we block those sites as one of the solutions--albeit, a band-aid approach as one of my blog posters pointed out--and instead set up our own blogging sites. I do not include David Warlick's Blogmeister in this, nor other sites specifically designed for teachers. To set up our own blogosphere--severing the connections to the "real blogosphere"--may be the ONLY way to ensure that districts are doing all they can to protect students. Failure to do so means we willfully expose our children to dangers we very well knew existed, but chose to overlook. I think if schools did cut off access to Blogger or other sites that they can't control, where does the line end? I think this is a classic bit of over-reaction and that it will effectively kill any benefits that can come from blogging. To the list of "nots" I would add - Do NOT allow yourself to be limited in where you access information from, for students this means not limiting themselves to where they know support will be, but also exploring other areas where support may be as well to expand their own knowledge base. It's "not" but not one that creates a solid wall, but one that tries to open things up a bit. Technorati Tags: Technology Integration, Blogging Basics, Blogs