With a Q

We are talking about social networking and blogs/other environments that are prominent on the internet right now. At my own employ, I have long been pushing for the use of blogs in education. Teachers need to collaborate, but there's a wall that's encountered when we think about breaking it out to kids.Some schools have resorted to Blogger because it is free, and for the lack of funding available or desire to avoid red tape...going "free" is the easiest way to get things done. Privacy issues abound, and if we sanction having kids put their most important personal details up for the world to see via Google's application empire, we also need to address digital literacy, not literacy so much as digital accountability.

I see the benefits of blogging in the education space, but not with what Blogger has to offer. Thinking back on the required readings for my CTER course, there are concerns about the privacy of such blogs. Namely our generation's mistrust of anything big and corporate, and wanting freedom within limits; and the younger generation's willingness to post anything and everything they want without filter...I wonder if there will ever be a balance. But then again, as that article pointed out, it's the adults setting the bad example.

The thing I like about my own blog and software is I can't tune to a fine detail what I want and don't want the outside world to see. Some users need to log in. I don't usually allow comments on my blogs, someone has to sign up for an account with my permission and then they can post if they want. No one has...they usually just call me.

I wish the open source arena supported SIMPLE interfaces like this. It makes it super easy to get out of the box all the quicker. But I guess if you want control and governance, then you need to work or it a bit. My own blog is based on Drupal, but there are other softwares like: Wordpress, Expressions Engine, Moveable Type. Other blog tools are available in LMS's themselves: Moodle has a tool I believe, as does Sakai and others. There is a solution out there for everyone I think. I am still working my own solution out here.

Image courtesy of Craphound via Boing Boing.