[Air-l] private/public

[Gilbert B. Rodman]

One partial solution (which I use) is to set up course blogs so that:

(1)  They're not crawled by search engine spiders
(2)  Their "ping" features for notifying blog indexing sites like
Technorati are disabled
(3)  Their URLs aren't posted publicly
(4)  They're taken offline completely at the end of the semester.

Some of these things may be easier to control than others, depending on
the underlying software your blogs use and what sort of control (if any)
you have over the server that hosts the blog. 

And it's not a perfect solution, since my course blogs are technically
still visible to the public ... if you know where to look for them while
they're actually online.  But, so far anyway, it's a solution that seems
to have worked pretty well.  Those blogs are invisible enough that they
never get comment spam, and my test searches on Google and Technorati
for major phrases from blog posts have always come up empty.

cheers
gil


Andrea Forte wrote:
> Barry,
>
> I agree that there is a critical privacy issue here. There are many kinds
> of communication in schools that should be kept from public view.
> There is also a very real opportunity to use the Internet as a venue
> for encouraging public writing. In my work I see students responding with
> enthusiasm and a sense of responsibility to their readership when they
> write in public venues online.
>
> The critical issue here to me is whether or not we require students to
> publish under their real names. I would argue that coerced publication
> would be ethically objectionable *if* done in an identifiable fashion.
>
> When I speak to teachers about using wikis in schools, I implore them
> *never* to require their students to publish under their real names, or
> any identifiable pseudonym. Think back, I ask them, to things you wrote
> when you were 16 years old. How much of that would you like to see
> archived publicly today?
>
> In my research I have high school students publicly editing wiki entries
> on science--they work on some of the most innocuous topics imaginable. The
> carbon cycle, endangered plants, etc. They also write on topics like
> federal policies that affect human reproduction. Their views today are not
> something I want their 30-year-old selves to be held accountable for.
>
> Andrea
>
>
> On Fri, 16 Mar 2007, Barry Wellman wrote:
>
>   
>> I've read with interest your comments on whether it is ok for a class to
>> blog publicly. I was surprised at such unanimity in favor of public
>> blogging. Maybe it is because I am Canadian (of New York extraction,
>> albeit) who only watched Jennicam once and will never, ever Twitter.
>>
>> I've been thinking about what folks have been saying, and I still think
>> that course blogs should be private.
>>
>> I distill the arguments for public blogs to saying that students should be
>> getting used to writing in public. Agreed. Indeed, I am now writing a book
>> on how social scientists should write.
>>
>> But a classroom (and e-extensions of it) are different. Indeed, I start
>> off each year by saying that this classroom is safe space and within broad
>> limits (abuse, libel, etc.), people should be free to express any ideas --
>> as long as they keep it within the class. (I don't allow recording either,
>> except for those with disabilities.) With a password protected blog,
>> students talk to each other, to the TA, and to me. That's enough. I don't
>> want anyone worried about being humiliated, or in any other feeling
>> constrained in their discussion. Nor do I want those not in the class
>> barging into the discussion -- for one thing, they have not been privy to
>> all the discussions that went on beforehand nor do they know the
>> personalities involved.
>>
>> But perhaps I am an old fuddy-duddy. Let me give you another
>> private/public example that aroused debate among my students yesterday. I
>> was interviewed by the Toronto Star earlier this week on a story that
>> dealt with whether people would rather say unpleasant things online rather
>> than F2F. (I have no data on this, btw.) Also interviewed was a young
>> woman who said (and I paraphrase), "Well I ditched him by email, but no
>> matter, as we had only slept together once."
>>
>> There was the obvious debate about what is the etiquette was for ditching
>> someone who had been slept with "only once": 5 said a F2F goodbye was
>> called for; 1 said email was ok these days because it was such a common
>> experience.
>>
>> But what shocked everyone one of us is that the woman interviewed used her
>> own name. We wonder if anyone has contacted her; two radio stations have
>> already contacted me about the story -- and my part of the interview was
>> much less sensationalistic than her's. (I introduced the reporter to the
>> concept of "flaming").
>>
>>  Barry Wellman
>>  _____________________________________________________________________
>>
>>   Barry Wellman   S.D. Clark Professor of Sociology   NetLab Director
>>   Centre for Urban & Community Studies          University of Toronto
>>   455 Spadina Avenue    Toronto Canada M5S 2G8    fax:+1-416-978-7162
>>   wellman at chass.utoronto.ca  http://www.chass.utoronto.ca/~wellman
>>         for fun: http://chass.utoronto.ca/oldnew/cybertimes.php
>>  _____________________________________________________________________
>>
>>
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