Best Practices

Blogging is a fun and very popular thing. However it can also be dangerous because a lot of information is often shared on blogs. Especially when creating a class blog with pictures, video and names of students, safety is a huge issue. How horrid it would be to have any child somewhat exploited through an innocent classroom blog page. Here are a few cautions and safety tips I found in researching when blogging.

1. Using a blogging site that has clear privacy and security policies. Many websites, like Blogger, have security settings which allows for the blog to be private or public. There is also a feature to help report abuse. Depending on who you want to see your blog, it may be a good idea to make it private rather than public.

http://ilookbothways.com/learn-safety/blogging/

2. Assume what you publish online is permanent. Anyone can find a blog online and either print or save it, so it's important to not put information that is too personal online. An educational blog should be used for educational purposes only.

http://www.microsoft.com/security/family-safety/blogging.aspx

3. Decide who can comment on the blog under posts. This is important because parents may want to make a comment. There is good feature also that will allow the blog administrator to moderate all of the comments, deciding which will be allowed to show up under posts. I found a cool tutorial on exactly how to do this, which includes a few more details.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0J15liTK820