Scenario+A

Scenario A: Elementary Language Arts Blog
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.

Provide your guidance below

**As Aaron's teacher I would do the following:**

View this scenerio as a great teachable moment for the entire class. Since the class has been blogging for a couple of months, and they are accustomed to using internet tools, an outline of the pros and cons of the situation to share with the class may include:

**__Pros__** (The positive effects)
 * Aaron has an opportunity to be part of educational research
 * He can share with the other students
 * Review of online safety rules
 * Model appropriate internet behaviors by ignoring a post from someone you don't know
 * Engage students in debate of a real situation
 * Good time to update firewall protection
 * Someone recognized your student as a great writer


 * __Cons__** (The negative effects)
 * How do you know this is genuinely research based
 * Parents may not agree
 * It may model inappropriate behavior from the teacher to respond to someone unknown
 * May be against school policy
 * May be a fake webpage/link for the unknown person to gain information
 * This may be a real threatening situation
 * School firewall may be defected
 * It may upset some students to reply to someone they don't know


 * __Conclusion__**

====First of all, kudos to Aaron for being a safe and responsible blogger by informing his teacher about the unknown comment on his blog. After brainstorming with the class and discussing the pros and cons of Aaron's situation, the incident should be concluded as such: ====

====Aaron and his teacher will thank the class for all their wonderful feedback. The teacher will let them understand that the right procedure to follow would be one of informing the school personnel (and maybe share the incident at the next staff meeting). She will also keep Aaron's parents notified about the incident. They must request for the school's firewall protection to be checked and updated. Finally, Aaron should delete the comment from his blog to show he is not interested and no response will be coming from him in the future. ====


 * LESSON LEARNED**!