The Wind Caves

Path to the wind caves in Logan Canyon












View from inside the wind caves











View of wind caves from the trail

Blogging safety tips

One web page says that around half the blogs are written by teenagers.  Often times they reveal too much personal information that could get them into trouble with bad people that are on the internet.  Because I plan to work with children, I was interested to read the guidelines at http://www.microsoft.com/security/family-safety/blogging.aspx.  Here are some that were helpful for me:

1- Evaluate the blogging service to see if it offers password protected blogs.  A blog would be safer with a password and the password should only be shared with trustworthy people that won't give the password out to strangers or untrustworthy people.

2- Screen blogs before they are posted.  It's important to check what children want to post to be sure they don't post any personal information so they are safe.

3- Find positive examples of blogs for children to see.  Children can see what is appropriate to put on their blogs.

4- Keep blogs positive.  It's possible that if you speak badly about someone, that person may find out and be hurt.  Some people who attack others can get into legal trouble.

5- Use blogging services that provide clear terms of service.  Some providers protect user accounts with password protection, but they don't protect the actual blogs.  To have the actual blogs protected with a password adds another layer of protection.

The Pedagogy of Blogs

Learning is fun!

There are three educational blogs that I have learned about.  I looked at one blog for a classroom of 2nd year students located in New Zealand. http://room9nelsoncentral.blogspot.com  On the blog is different stories the children have created.  It was fun to click on a video and listen to a student tell a story and to also look at the illustrations that the student created.  That's pretty cool to look at what a class is doing outside of the United States!  Anybody can give the children comments on their creations.  It must feel neat to the children to post their work for the world to see.

In a different classroom blog the students communicate to each other.  http://classblogmeister.com/blog.php?blogger_id=61490 That means that many students can speak to other students in the classroom and the classroom is still quiet.  A great thing about writing to each other is the students see a practical reason to learn to type.

A third blog I looked at was for a class in Australia http://www.2mgems.blogspot.com.  It's fun to hear the children speak (especially with the accent).  This site had a list on the right side that showed the routines for that class.  It's nice that the parents can just go to the class blog to be reminded of things they need to know and to know of updates.