When we first began writing about the Internet, we tried to make the point to educators that the Internet was not developed for you. The Internet is for everyone and serves a wide variety of purposes. Some material may have been developed for the purpose you have in mind, but much of the material would have been developed for other purposes.
I am reminded of this same point today. USA Today has an article describing adolescent blogs and the type of information that is contained in such blogs. In commenting on this article Will Richardson takes issue with the use of the term blog and attempts to differentiate journal from blog. I understand the distinction, but many will not care. It is blogging software, the content is hosted on sites described as blog sites, so participants describe what they are doing as blogging.
Schools are caught in a difficult position. While they may see the educational benefits of blogging, they may prefer that students within the school walls not read the other material that is posted to blogs. What can I say – it is the Internet and it has no priority customers.
Perhaps special purpose and protected blogs are the answer for some. However, like the Internet in general, a protected approach will eliminate access to both bad and good stuff.
