Scenario+D

​​​Scenario D: High School Language Arts Blog
Your tenth 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, Mary, asked you about a comment on her blog. Someone complimented her on her story but Mary doesn’t recognize the name. You review the comment and the link provided, and it appears to be someone from another state. The comment asks Mary for more information about the story project and her school. Mary asks what she should do next. STEP ONE: CONFERENCE WITH THE SPECIFIC STUDENT AND PARENTS ​ STEP TWO: CLASS DISCUSSION
 * Before engaging the entire class with the situation, a conference with the student, Mary, should first occur. After all, this is MARY'S story. While the class may feel that she should be happy with any interest in her online, written work, she, personally, may not want to share any additional information with someone she does not know.
 * Follow up with the student's parents "MAY" be necessary. Even with Mary's permission to share additional information with an interested person NOT from the school, another important step may be to involve the parent. Many compositions, while personal in nature, may not be a concern for high school students, but parents, with additional wisdom or heightened concern, may not feel comfortable with additional exposure of his or her child via the internet.
 * After receiving Mary's approval but before entering into a class discussion about the situation, remind students about the initial rules of engagement:
 * In blog work and other online publishing, there is to be no mention of the school or its location
 * There is to be no reference to their ages
 * Their email address is NOT to be shared.
 * Abosultely NO photographs of themselves or other sensitive information is to be be posted.
 * After Mary and the teacher share this development with the class, the class should discuss the situation and outline the "Pros" and "Cons" of sharing information from the story project.
 * During the discussion, remind students that the blog was created so their stories could have a larger, real world audience.
 * Ask students how receiving a comment of interest from an unknown source, as Mary did, makes them feel. Does it raise their curiosity or their caution?
 * If the class decides the development could lead to positive exchange with a class in another state, the teacher could try to find out who sent the comment and make a connection with that class if appropriate.
 * The teacher needs to involve the people allowed into the process. (Will Richardson, Blogs, Wikis, Podcasts, p. 13).
 * Post this link on the board - students should go to it and read it:
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 * <span style="background-color: #ffffff; font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 120%;">Then come back together to discuss this article together