Thank you for your vote of support. There have been similar threads elsewhere in relation to the use of the read-write web by educators.

Generally it seems the consensus appears that we need to apply commonsense and simply do the right thing and that a set of rules or guides is not really all that necessary. We are all grown up I guess.

Cheers, John.

Bill, yes, it is true that the net does allow us to make choices if an individual annoys or offends. We can simply unsubscribe or block them. No-one is hurt or affected by those simple actions. In the workplace it is a little different. We need ‘rules’ written or otherwise that guide our interactions professionally and personally. If someone offends or annoys at work we cannot simply block them or unsubscribe the individual from the workplace.

It is an irony that we do guide our students in the use of the blogs. I usually ask them to apply commonsense and even to read out aloud to themselves what they have written. When they hear their own words it can have an impact on how they perceive them.

How to best to balance the need to introduce and the opportunity to explore? I do not have a simple ready-made solution at hand yet I suggest commonsense and the sharing of good examples. Show the students that you have faith in them to do the right thing and the students themselves will often set examples among their own peer group. They have the capacity to sort themselves out as well. They all know the difference between right and wrong.

Thanks for your thoughtful words Bill. I am happy to share in this exchange,

cheers, John.

Formalizing a process that is largely controlled by individual decisions already seems counter-intuitive.

The interesting thing for me is that I find myself imposing my uses of blogs and other digital tools on my students! I guess that a part of introduction ends up being indoctrination when you’re working with kids who have no experience with digital tools.

I wonder how to best balance the need to introduce students to a system for using new tools with the freedom to experiment, explore and create new uses.

I’ll be chewing on that for awhile!
Bill