I am trying to come to grips as to how to utilize web 2.0 in an early childhood education (ECE) program . New tools such as blogs, wikis and social networking should be ideal instruments to help young children express themselves and make connections with others across the globe. With these new web tools there seems to be a bull in the china shop, privacy and protecting our little ones, that we must deal with before moving forward.
I’ll start with a fairly safe web 2.0 tool, wikis. Over at Always Learning I discovered of an interesting little wiki where children are using voice thread to share drawings and comments with children around the world, KinderKidsDraw. Wiki’s can be a safe place for children to store work and have a selected audience. I see a lot of possibilities with parent communication using wikis and I would love to find some examples. Though wikis seem good for closed community activities I still like the idea of blogging for opening an ECE classroom to the world.
When I think about what blogs have to offer my current group of students, 5-6 year olds, my mind begins to race with all the possibilities. Over at ICTECE I am inspired by a wonderful post about the possibilities of blogging in children’s education. I would love for my students to show the world who they are and what they can do using the tool of blogs. Blogging allows for the creator and the viewer to have a conversation, something that should happen more in all of education. Unfortunately having an open blog puts images and names of children together on the web for all to see, traditionaly a taboo in education. There is a part of me that thinks walling off (password or invite only protection) a child’s blogs keeps children from experiencing a large part of what blogging has to offer. It seems web 2.0 in an ECE program still has to deal with some age old questions…When does protecting our children interfere with their learning? Or…When does learning interfere with protecting our children?
If you would like to read more on blogging safely with children you can visit HERE.
Hi. I'm G. Steve McCallum.
I am currently teaching kindergarten at International School Manila. I have been teaching preschool-kindergarten for the past 15 years. I have taught in the USA, Japan, Thailand and the Philippines.
Hi Steve –
My comments come more from a parent perspective here, as I have no experience as an educator of anyone below 11 years of age.
I think the ideas about kids displaying their work on wikis is a great one, especially for us global citizens. We have so many friends and family spread across the world, that it is a good way for them to see what my children have been doing at school. As it is, I just forward the weekly buzz to grandparents, godparents, and other interested parties. A public wiki would be better.
On the issue of blogs, I am a little more reserved. I took a peek at your daughter’s blog – pretty cool for an 8 year old! I think my kids would also enjoy this aspect, but I feel ’safer’ having control over what is published. As long as schools allowed for names and/or photos to be withheld at the parents’ discretion, I am on board, but then does this defeat the purpose of a blog? I think a carefully crafted policy on what can and cannot be uploaded would have to be in place first, along with some pretty serious parental education as to the purpose, benefits and potential drawbacks.
Nadine
Good questions.
ISM Internet publishing policy says we don’t publish pictures with full names. In the case of a blog, I’d even go a bit further just to be on the safe side and just use initials, and not put names together with photos at all.
It depends a bit what you want to use the blog for, though, doesn’t it? It’s safe to include photos of student work, links to your podcast episodes, transcripts of conversations, relating experiences, etc. At that age, it’ll be the teacher and the TAs who do the work, so you don’t risk the kids posting anything inappropriate. You can leave moderation on for the comments for an additional buffer against anything that might offend anyone. While it’s possible to create a so-called walled garden with a blog, I feel you risk limiting its usefulness a lot.
I love VoiceThread, but unfortunately, we can’t upload audio from within our school firewall, which kind of defeats the purpose. I’ve heard of other schools that have the same problem and were able to open a few ports to get through. Perhaps we’ll be able to wangle a sort of solution at ISM as well. From a teaching perspective, VoiceThread is definitely among the cooler of the new Web 2.0 tools.
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Hi Steve,
You have done a lot of great work in developing your blog! I feel kind of like I am cheating as I use links that you have discovered and blog posts that I find useful. I hope you don’t mind that I am using quite a bit of the information you have found. Hopefully, I will come upon some posts on my own that you will find useful in the future. I guess this is what this whole blogging world is about.
There really are some exciting and extremely meaningful possibilities for young children in using technology out there! I must admit I am still hesitant in going forward as I have ingrained in me the “anti-computer” sentiments of many past early education mentors. However, the whole point of authentic and meaningful communication could really be acheived for children through blogs.
I wonder how other classrooms have dealt with the whole confidentiality/sharing of information issue. It might be interesting to explore that topic with the early education blogs that we find out there. (I promise I will help find some in the near future!)
@Nadine
I too am concerned about the safety issues of using blogs with children. I am even more concerned about my daughter going off into the blogosphere (or whatever there is next with web 3.0) without an understand of ways she can take safety into her own hands.
That being said, I feel that blogging gives young children a voice, a very powerful voice that they might not have elsewhere. Young children truly believe that the world revolves around them. Blogging gives children a voice that is capable of being heard from across the world, just as it should be. I vote on teaching them to use it.
@Ståle
I agree, the walled garden blogs defeats many of the great aspects of blogging. I am finding it very difficult to find blogs relating to ECE. I wonder if that might be because they are behind these ‘walls’ or maybe there are not that many ECE teachers blogging with their students. Either way, I am finding it difficult to extend my network of ECE blogs.
@Matt
No worries. I know I’ll be stealing some of your links soon enough.
I too am a former/current ‘anti-computer’ ECE teacher. It still makes me uncomfortable to see a student in the classroom spend long periods of time in front of a screen without communicating with the children in the classroom. I just look at that as me using IT incorrectly. Maybe more collaborative types of activities using IT… blogs, voice thread, podcasts, etc. This seems like it will be an exciting journey.
Hi Steve,
I agree with the security issues that you bring up. Although it is not an official policy of the school I teach in, I have made in my own policy not to show children’s faces on our blog http://www.ecakinderkids.weebly.com. I have become very good at taking pictures from behind, cropping and blurring faces. I never use first and last names and I have even tried to make it really hard for anyone to even identify my school and exact location. Perhaps I’m a little paranoid, but I would hate for something to happen on my watch.
I spent over a year inserving teachers how to use the web safely in their classrooms back in the late 90’s and those safety issues are still strong in me.
Now, with the safety issues addressed, I think the internet is a wonderful tool that came be used in so many creative ways to service a multitude of purposes and I would hate for anyone to be too frightened to use it. Hopefully thoughtful educators such as yourself will continue to use common sense to monitor yourselves and provide a safe and exciting learning opportunity for your children.
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