I've been thinking a bit about privacy and whether or not it should be much of a concern for the EFL/ESL instructor. To start with, most of you and/or your students will not be posting information that would have much to do with private issues. If your blogging is limited to issues surrounding the learning of a language, then I don't think there will be a great deal of private material discussed. And there are always the technological tools included in most of the software you will be using that will allow you to keep the post private or least visible only to your small group.

G'day!

But then I come to Bee's post yesterday that the "best way is to explain what to do and not to do and why." (regarding privacy issues) In other words, Bee takes an approach, that if a student is given the proper information about a thing, they can learn how to best take care of themselves. While, there is much wisdom in what Bee says, I think there is also the implication, that for many students, the instructors efforts at teaching them to blog in ESL/EFL may be the students first exposure to this type of internet narrative. It seems to me, then, that the instuctor may need to model to the students the most appropriate approach regarding blogging and privacy and confidentiality.

With that in mind, I am posting some suggested links to readings on the FAQ page, to help the instructor who wants to use blogs in their classes, to help sort out their own thoughts about how to approach the issue. I hope that all of you will give the matter some consideration and perhaps post your thoughts on how best to handle privacy and confidentiality for your particular situation. If you have additional links to add, please feel free to do so ....this ought to be a constructivist approach to learning.

One last thought. After yesterday's comments on privacy and blogging, I decided I wanted to see just how "public" my blogs were on the internet. Though not an all inclusive method, I "googled" my name to see what came up. I was shocked with the number of references. Not only did I find the Google had listed all of my posts, but I also found where other people had listed my post in their own blogs. It was a real surprise to actually see how even a picture may have attracted enough attention to cause two or three or more folks to comment about it on some other blog.

I hope you all have a great day

elderbob Thursday, January 20, 2005 at 3:28 AM

Hi Elderbob. I just googled myself too and discovered that none of the stuff I've been doing with this group comes up. Is it a name thing? By just using my first name in posts am I protecting my privacy? Could be protect our learners' privacy by asking them to use pseudonyms? Also, I suspect that some people actually want their privacy to be, well maybe not violated but busted up a little. Probably not in this group but in some other blogs I've come across it seems to be welcomed as a cathartic experience. Well, that's my two bobs worth for this evening. Lesley 1:27 PM