Keeping yourself (and your students) safe in the blogosphere

Many of you will have seen the recent media coverage about Natalie Munroe, the high school English teacher who was suspended as a result of her "profanity laced" blog about her "disengaged, lazy whiners". If you haven't seen the story, you can check out an article here.

It certainly seems to have provided a timely reminder for all teachers about the potential dangers of the public nature of the Internet, and raises many issues about what is and is not appropriate fodder for the very public domain of blogging. In the interest of protecting the future of what I see as a very important, rare and precious beast (the reflective teacher blog), here are some tips and advice for how to keep ourselves (and our students) safe in the blogosphere.

Please note - this is a work in progress and any suggestions, additions and/or feedback is welcome!

10 Tips for Teacher Blogs

1. Make the content about your teaching, not your students.
2. Actually, avoid discussing the students directly at all...if possible.
3. If you do make a reference to a student (even in a positive light), do not name or identify them.
4. Same goes for your colleagues and bosses - again this should be a forum for sharing and reflecting on your teaching strategies, resources and outcomes.
5. Humour is good, mocking others is not.
6. Keep language professional and appropriate ("profanity-laced" probably best avoided).
7. Don't reveal (literally or figuratively) too much about yourself - we are getting dangerously comfortable in a very public, easily copied and shared environment.
8. Don't make your home address or phone number available
9. Think before you blog.
10. Don't drink before you blog.

You can do it! Giving teachers the encouragement to blog!

One of the most heartening things about this project so far has been the number of English teachers who have said the project has given them the encouragement they need to either start a blog, continue a blog or even fire up a blog again!

So far we have 35 teachers on board. Make sure you check out the entire blog list here. The list is made up of teachers from around the world, ranging from student teachers through to the very experienced.


If you are keen to check out recent updates from our dedicated bloggers, you can check out the links to the right of the main blog (the blog at the top is the one that has been most recently updated).

We are still looking for English teachers to get involved, if you (or anyone you know) is keen, please don't hesitate to make contact. Simply email me at am@eggs.school.nz

10 English Teacher Blogs....91 to go!

One week in and I am proud to say we have 10 English Teacher blogs joined up to the project and many more interested! Of particular interest is the global mix of bloggers. We have English teacher blogs from Scotland, England, America, Australia and New Zealand! This kind of international sharing would have been unimaginable not so long ago.

Welcome to our most recent additions; Eric MacKnight who has shared three of his class blogs (an inspiration!), Fiona Burns who has shared a great example of a Mahara MyPortfolio which will be of particular interest to the kiwi teachers (I suspect we will be seeing more and more of Mahara in NZ) and Denee Tyler's My View From Here.

I am also really excited by the mix of the 'experienced' and those new to blogging! Everyone is welcome and every teacher has something valuable to share. So if you are an English teacher and are keen to join the 101 English Blogs project, please do! Tell your colleagues to join us as well!

Email your blog URL to am@eggs.school.nz

Welcome to our new bloggers!

I just wanted to welcome some of the teachers who have bravely thrown their hat into the ring! From NZ we have The Invisible Teacher who is reflecting on, rather suitabley, teacher reflection. From England we have Miss Norrat, who was inspired by this project (awesome!) to create her class blog Our English Classroom . From Scotland I have just added the blog Just Trying to be a Better than Yesterday who has been posting weekly reflections on his unit based on No Longer Living Next Door to Alice.

A great start for the first four days! If you are keen to join the project I would love to here from you! Simply email me you blog URL to am@eggs.school.nz and let me know if you would like to be added as an author of this blog as well.

Please pass on this message to any English colleagues out there - it would be fabulous if this could be a truly global project!

Welcome to 101 English Blogs

Welcome to 101 English Blogs project!
The aim of this project is to encourage 101 English teachers from around the world to start blogging about their English classrooms. This blog will list each of the 101 blogs and will be a place for sharing and highlighting what is going on in over 100 English classrooms.

Are you an English teacher? Keen to be part of the project??
If you are an English teacher and are keen to share your reflections, ideas and resources with a wider English community, all you need to do is establish a blog, or share an already established one. You can simply share your blog URL, so it can be one of the 101 listed blogs here, or you can even become an author of this blog as well, so you can post occasional updates about what you and others have been blogging about.

As the project facilitator, I will also try to visit and highlight posts from bloggers within our 101 English Blogs community. However, I am hoping that this can as much of a shared project as possible, so if you if you would like to join this blog as an author, please do! I would also love your support in sharing the project with your colleagues and by signing up to the follow the blog.

I have established English blog #1 The Virtual Classroom which will follow my three English classes (Year 11, 12 and 13) at Epsom Girls Grammar School. Now I just need to find 100 more....

Interested? Feel free to contact me at am@eggs.school.nz

Cheers

Claire