I must admit that after all of the talk about google+ and circles in class I was fascinated to read this article from the Chronicle of Higher Ed. http://chronicle.com/blogs/profhacker/an-audience-of-none/36320?sid=wc&utm_source=wc&utm_medium=en The author writes a blog about getting students to write for more than an audience of one. Going online to get an audiences for your students sounds good and may motivate many of them. I struggle with the motivation behind it though. Is the only way to get students to care about projects to post them online?
Some of the teachers that posted expressed similar fears to what I have been struggling with for awhile now. Yes, Google lets people as young as 13 signup for an account. Yes, most students have a Facebook page that they check religiously. Yes, technology is everywhere, but what is the consequence of putting all of the this online? If you limit your exposure to a google+ circle that is well and good but what if your account get hacked and all of your info becomes public knowledge?Do I want the world to know what I think? Am I really posting in the same sense if I use a false name. Doesn't that defeat the idea, somewhat, of writing to get heard and acknowledged? I don't know that I want to tell my students to put up work that they may use in the future for research if the sites that they are posting on claim ownership. Even D2L (Blackboard) say that any content you post is now theirs even if you think you have deleted it. Copyright and privacy sit side by side in my mind as I wrestle with the idea of all of my information for anyone to access.
On a side note I wonder how many of our class really cares what their classmates think of their work? Does it motivate you? Do you do better knowing there is more than an audience of one? Are you concerned with privacy or copyright?
When I first started blogging I felt really uncomfortable about it because I had always written for an audience of one, my teacher, and occasionally a peer during peer editing. Publishing online makes you think about the quality of your work because it will be seen by such a wide audience. Students should be encouraged to produce high-quality work regardless of whether or not it is publish for anyone else to see. Some students like publishing projects because they like the idea of other people seeing their work or feeling like their work is part of something larger. Maybe as a teacher, you can make sharing their work optional?
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