Blogging Purpose and Guidelines

In our class, I will ask you to reflect on your learning by sharing your writing with an authentic audience. All students posts will be reviewed by me before they go live. All comments will need to be approved by me before they go live. After we have learned more about writing for a larger audience, these steps may be dropped.

Why blog?
Blogs are a powerful way to share our work with a wide audience. Instead of students only writing for the teacher, all of the parents can view the work, and if desired, leave comments. In addition, global connections will be available since our blogs will be visible outside of our DA campus unlike Moodle and our Google Apps. Using blogs is also a great way for students to develop their digital literacy and citizenship skills. Blogs strike the perfect balance of providing information anytime and anywhere, social networking and interaction, and the ability to openly share thoughts and achievements. We believe we need to be guiding students in developing their digital portfolio in order to also learn reputation management since we know that more and more students will be using digital devices and tools in and out of school.

Safety
Keeping our students personal details private is very important to all of us. Students will use the following guidelines to insure both safety but also digital citizenship. Student use of the classroom blogs are covered under the DA Acceptable Use Policy.

In addition, students will follow the guidelines below.

Blogging Guidelines

As a student blogger at DA, you are expected to follow these blogging guidelines below. Use the questions in italics to help you decide what is appropriate to post on our blog.
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?
Do not share personal information.
Ask yourself: Could someone find me (in real life) based on this information?
Think before you post.
Ask yourself: What could be the consequences of this post?
Know who you’re communicating with.
Ask yourself: Who is going to look at this, and how are they going to interpret my words?
Consider your audience and that you’re representing DA.
Ask yourself: Do I have a good reason/purpose to do this?
Know how to give constructive feedback.
Ask yourself: What will I cause by writing this post?
Treat other people the way you want to be treated.
Ask yourself: Would I want someone to say this to me?
Use appropriate language and proper grammar and spelling.
Ask yourself: Would I want this post to be graded for proper grammar and spelling?
Only post information that you can verify is true (no gossiping).
Ask yourself: Is this inappropriate, immature or bullying?
Anytime you use media from another source, be sure to properly cite the creator of the original work.
Ask yourself: Who is the original creator of this work?

Commenting Guidelines
As a blogger, you will be commenting on other people’s work regularly. Good comments:
* are constructive, but not hurtful;
* consider the author and the purpose of the post;
* are always related to the content of the post;
* include personal connections to what the author wrote;
* answer a question, or add meaningful information to the content topic;
* follow the writing process. Comments are a published piece of writing.

These guidelines are adapted and developed from the ones at http://blogs.isb.ac.th/blogging-guidelines/

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