I posted this in my online class where I listed all the class member blogs, and thought some of my online colleagues may find it potentially interesting:
As a reminder, blogs out there on the Blogosphere (the online world of blogs) are generally public, which means that anybody anywhere can see them. I do not think it would be ethical for me to publicly require you to post to the world about what you are learning in our class, and this is one of the reasons I stated in the syllabus and in our session last week that your blogs do not have to be public to anybody outside of this class. With this in mind, I believe there is great value in learning and engaging in the process of speaking publicly (that is part of the role of being an educator, IMHO), and as such encourage you to use your blog to build your online presence and persona, encourage feedback for your thinking and online work, and to foster community with others who have similar interests (both professional and personal).
I really like this disclaimer. I am not asking students in my course to start a blog because the course is only 7 weeks long, this is despite reflective practice and blogging go so well together.
Do you spend any time talking about online identity, Jeffrey?
@sarah stewart
Thank you, Sarah. I have spoken about this in my introduction, and as I wrote it within one of my course windows itself, I thought perhaps sharing it to promote online teaching and learning may be of some value (of what to or what not to do!).
I expect to speak about online identity. Why, do you have any suggestions or resources?
I didn’t have any suggestions as such, but it seems to me that before we develop an online presence, we need to decide what/who we want to be ie professional, anoymous etc
I see few ethical problems with requiring my students to blog publicly (pseudonymously). It may be my particular context–I’m working with mostly grad students in the media professions–but the advantages you list seem pretty important to the learning process.