Students' own guidelines for blogging

The tips in this Tech & Learning blog are "only" meant to be guidelines for student blogging, but clearly they also teach digital citizenship and new media literacy – critical thinking about the content and impact of what one sees, says, and does on self, others, and community. For example, here are three of them: 1) "Only post things that you would want everyone (in school, at home, in other countries) to know. Ask yourself: Is this something I want everyone to see?" 7) "Treat other people the way you want to be treated. Ask yourself: Would I want someone to say this to me?" and 9) "Only post information that you can verify is true (no gossiping). Ask yourself: Is this inappropriate, immature or bullying?" The questions at the end of each are designed to help students personalize the guidelines. What's even more impressive about these pointers is that they were developed by 3rd, 4th, and 5th graders, and Kim Cofino – the writer of this blog post and a tech educator at the International School in Bangkok – and her fellow teachers found that they worked just as well at the middle and high school levels. Kim writes: "Being able to start this conversation with our middle school teachers using resources developed by 3rd, 4th and 5th grade students, clearly demonstrates that even our younger students really do understand both the power and the responsibilities of communicating to a global audience." [See this for more on new-media literacy).