As a researcher who is exploring digital literacy, I thought it was appropriate to use blogging as one method to document and reflect on my research. One thing I noticed when I was writing my observations in my first blog, however, was the amount of self-censoring that was happening as I wrote. For one thing, I am aware that I must preserve student anonymity, so that will keep me from using student names and writing about individual students too closely. Certainly that has a negative side effect, since it may keep me from fully exploring what is happening with a student and from making observations in writing. I suppose I might have to keep a research notebook where I write down individual progress and observations, but then only post generalities. It is certainly something that points out the difference between private writing and writing in a public forum.
Yesterday, Kief and I mentioned to the kids that we are keeping blogs as part of our discussion of how to tell if websites or sources are authoritative. The student reaction in every class was the same--they were really surprised and some thought it was funny. Given their surveys at the beginning of this unit, they don't think of their teachers and parents as users of technology in the same way as they use technology, so their reaction doesn't surprise me. None of them actually asked where we had our blogs posted, but I wonder at some point if one of them will come back and tell us that they've looked us up and found the blogs. One student wanted to know if we were on Face Book, and we had a discussion about colleges using social networking sites to screen their applicants. The student said he had a friend who was denied admission to a college because of this (do colleges tell students why they were denied admission?) and many students knew from the news that Gov. Sarah Palin's future son-in-law had a Face Book page that was embarrassing. One student said, "Kids need to be careful about what they put on their pages--you never know when you might be in the spotlight."
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What a week! We have students slowly mastering the online databases as they dive into source selection/bib card creation. We have overheard students teaching each other and eagerly sharing their new competence with their peers; Fran even heard a two students talking over their results list, stating that they wouldn't select a source because it was too specific vs. one that was more comprehensive. Those are good moments. However, we do have about four students in each class who are not doing too much and appear to be clueless. We are both trying to help these students, but several really need one on one tutors as their skill level and their motivation level challenges their progress. Fran, I was thinking that you could talk about specific students in the blog if you changed their names; that way we won't lose the immediacy/authenticity of your observations.
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