damn straight! we wouldn't want those kids writing or reading, for heaven's sake. completely useless!

Depends what they are blogging about really. If all they are writing a blog about is how "sally omg, sooo totaly stole jills man, and like .. i cant belive alice is putting out for the entire football team" - then yeah, its not an educational use of school computers.

And by judging most of the stuff I've stumbled across on livejournal/myspace type sites .... its all it really is.

Now, this isnt to say that blogging /cant/ be educational. A teacher of say, a current events course, could use blogging as an educational tool by having a year-long assignment in which students are encouragedd to write blog-entries about current events, providing their thoughts and feedback on whats going on in the world.

Or maybe for an independant project, keep track of all the news events relating to a topic of their choice, then at the end of the year compile what they have blogged about into an essay of some sort. Keep the requriements of number of postings 'easy' for the kids to keep up with (like, 2-3 school-related postings per week), and it'd be an informal yet educational way of making use of new technology.

Right, I have to agree with Kaniz. I think this is less of a crackdown on blogging than a crackdown on in-school virtual dating. Sure, they've never managed to control passing notes and batting eyelashes, but that can control how many times you update your myspace profile in a day.

I'll eat my words, happily, if it turns out all these high school kids are vying desperately to make their name over in the dailykos comments, but I've got my doubts. ;p

Regardless, thanks for the heads up, apophenia.

Blogging not educational...C'mon.

Thanks for this tidbit of info. As far as this blogga's opinion is concerned, any writing is good writing.

Are the emerging threats of 'Sally' and 'Alice' situations that "Kaniz" posted, possible?..Yes. But to knock the whole thing from the school...That's too harsh.

I think my response is shared by a lot of people here. Let them communicate.

Good info Apophenia,
BD
"Notes From the Lab"

He doesn't understand Blogging.

I find Blogging educational in that it allows us to read about the day in the life of people from other contries...

As a "young adult" who spends most of his time in high school, it's totally unnderstandable where this guy's coming from. A school does not have computers for the students' personal lives, but to be used as an "educational tool." And yet, when I go to the library during my study hall, more tha half of the computers are either on myspace or lj. Let's not kid ourselves: this is not for "enrichment," it's just how high schoolers gossip/socialize/interact now. When faced with this, does he really have a choice? Sure, blogs like this one might turn out to be more informative, but schools cannot run on a subjective basis, saying "this blog is okay; that one isn't." and so they are ALL banned.

Depends on what you think learning is. I, for one, think that socialization, identity formation, cultural education, technology negotiation are all critical areas of education, not simply the traditional math, english, science curriculum.

I honestly don't know what to think about this. I have a friend today at our high school who was banned for the rest of the year from the using the internet at our school for blogging online. She wasn't even given a warning of violating our Internet usage policy. Of course, they have this "Big Brother" system where the head librarian can instantly see what you see on your monitor and then print a picture of it and bust you for it. Now, this isn't totally wrong... if we're doing anything illegal or immoral, we deserve to be caught, but it makes me wonder about an invasion of privacy. Shouldn't students be able to use the computers to express themselves much like writing in a journal in study hall is? Sure, there's the social aspect to the whole thing. It's like opening your journal up for everyone to see. I also understand privacy issues. But why do we not allow students to express themselves? If we can't post blogs, would we be able to journal on the computer, save it, and post the blog later, at home? If not, then would we be allowed to even do any sort of creative writing on the computers? Then we run into freedom of speech issues. The school computer usage policy is simply that you can only use the computers for school work. But is that truly fair? I attend a public high school, do they have the right to do that? It's taxpayer's money that runs the school, does it have the right to limit computer use like that? I don't know; I'm just a high school student. If anybody has any ideas, I'm open to listen.

By the way... this name is totally fake.... just looking out for my privacy.

A lot of schools ban blogging. But I have no idea why cause usually puples do it in their spare time.