How do I model internet safety for my students?

In twenty years of teaching, I’ve never questioned the safety of my students or the safety of their writing using traditional writing workshop tools. We’ve shared our writing with each other, we’ve shared our writing with families, and we’ve hung our work out in the hallways to expand our audience. This always felt safe and looking back I realize that safety was never really a consideration. Previously, the only aspect of writing I worried about was how we might tell a story including other people and guiding responses so they were effective in a kind manner. Our traditional writing workshop pieces were always shared with a community in which we were members. Maybe that is why I panicked a bit about taking our writing beyond our four walls to a larger community with members we didn’t personally know.

This is another area where my twitter conversation with @KristinZiemke and her nudging to think about letting go slowly had a great impact on our journey. I didn’t have to have my student’s blogs open to an unknown community right at the start! We could keep our sharing within our classroom community of writers as we were currently doing in writing workshop. I found myself imagining us taking small steps and our digital literacy community circle could increase in size as we became more experienced in our learning; and digital writing. When you read the work of digital literacy teachers much farther down the path than yourself it’s easy to want to be right where they are RIGHT THEN, in that professional book, presentation, blog or tweet. We have to remember they too probably started with small steps and are further along on their own journey as digital literacy teachers.

How do I assure parents their children are safe online?

I communicate with parents about our writing workshop standards, learning targets, mini lesson goals, and examples of our work frequently during the year. However, I felt a responsibility to explain our digital writing launch and work in more detail. I was worried families might not be digitally engaged themselves and/or they would worry about their own child using digital tools. I also wanted to ease any concerns about Internet safety. I read a variety of resources from the Internet and put tidbits together for a parent newsletter. While this took a bit of time to research, think about and create, it was worth the investment of my time because each child was a successful blogger from home and parents had helpful information in case their child needed help. I shared with parents how the students would log in and how they could join our community and provide comments on our writing. I wanted to let them know they might see typing errors and why. “Writing and keyboarding are two different skills. I want to honor the writer while giving my students the opportunity to use the keyboard in a meaningful way. You may see spelling errors and you may see mechanical errors. The students are being encouraged to check for both of these errors. I believe with more time and practice these will become more natural for them as digital writers.” I also shared with them aspects of being a digital citizen; digital communication, digital security, and digital etiquette.

How can I feel more prepared?

A writing workshop format is within my comfort zone for several reasons. My undergraduate studies were about a workshop format: mini lesson, independent practice/conferring, and sharing. I’ve read lots of professional books about writing workshop. I’ve  taught various writing units and have experience using mentor texts to lead our work. I’ve seen over and over the importance of allowing students to choose their own topics for writing.

As I thought about my background and experience with writing workshop, I began to realize I was more prepared for a digital workshop format than I thought. I had read a few books about digital literacy and had blogs I frequently visited for ideas and mentors. I had some friends via Twitter and locally I could use as a resource. I could still use a workshop format but needed to consider the digital device as another tool, along with our paper, pencils, markers, and paint for creating and publishing student work. I could also still have my students choose their own topics. As I thought about all of my reasons for hesitating, I soon realized that I already had answers to some of my questions. I began to feel more confident to begin our work.

The Final Nudge

It wasn’t long before my students started giving me clues they wanted to participate more within our digital writing experiences.  Sam started leaving comments on the posts we did together and I felt he wanted to foster more conversations around our writing. After Sam left a few comments Addison stopped by to share some thinking.  Chihiro was excited one day during indoor recess when he created a domino train in great length and watched each domino tip over.  He wanted me to create a video of his domino train falling and post it to our classroom blog. I wished I had stopped to ask why but based on his excitement I believe this may have been a new experience for him. I did this at his request but it didn’t feel right to me because it was something personal and specific to him. This was not a common experience for all of us.  It would feel better if he was creating the video and he was making his own blog post. I believed through these experiences that my students were nudging me for more responsibility and opportunities to be independent. I knew I needed to take further action and release ownership for sharing our learning.

My students always enjoy going to the computer lab and working with technology.  They travel quickly, they find their seat and are quite attentive for any directions we might need to get through. I didn’t anticipate the cheers and clapping that occur when I announced we were going to launch and start preparing their own site for blogging! It became apparent right away we had done the “we do” part of the gradual release model far too long.