I've Been Blogged!

While sitting in the library while Mr. O'Hara was busily usurping my position as classroom teacher (ok, only sort of. . .student teachers have to do this), I ran out of teacher-y stuff to do. I created a list of students who will accompany me on the field trip in April. Completed in two minutes. I found an outline sample for Mrs. Forbes. Check. I talked with Mr. Biby about a problem with the colored printer while attempting to print scholar bowl certificates. Done. Put the finishing touches on the last two chapters of my action research project for McKendree College. My eyelids were getting heavy. After sighing forlornly and wiping the drool off my lip, I decided to do what lots of people do. I decided to google family members. I got lots of hits on my cousin, who is apparently a tech guru, but no one else. I decided to google myself. Up popped really cool pictures of other Jennifer Websters. Doctors, lawyers, average Joes, er, Janes. But not ME, Jennifer Webster. Fairly entertaining, I must say, but not entertaining enough to feel like a good use of my time. So I did the next best thing: I googled Bearcatenglish, my classroom website and blog. The majority of posts were links to assignments and various pages I've created on the website, but in the midst I found one site I'd long forgotten. It was a link to someone else's blog, called NerdyTales. I remember finding it one day in 2004 and thinking it was cool that someone else in cyberspace had found my homework blog. I printed it for posterity, put it in a file in case I ever needed to impress someone, and then promptly forgot about it. But there it was again. And seven people had replied to the author's comments about my blog (ok, one reply was mine, but seven is so much more impressive than six).

I forget sometimes that what I put on the Internet is there for all to see. I forget when pecking away at my keyboard that it is not beyond the realm of possibility that someone outside of our humble town of Christopher might view my website or blog. And even though I ask my students to blog and reply to each other online in the hopes that they will receive an authentic audience of world wide webbers, I fail to believe that my students may really get that audience. But it IS possible. With that possibility, then, comes a set of potential problems that I must consider. While it is great to have a real audience, how much do I want them to know about my students? How will I ensure their privacy (whether they want to be anonymous or not. . .some are all too eager to put their favorite bands or pictures of their friends or their emails on their pages)? When they begin adding pictures to dress up their boring pages, as teenagers are wont to do, must I teach them about copyright laws? How often should I check their pages to ensure Mary isn't jonseing Billy because he chatted with Mary's best friend last night on MSN or to be comfortable that Precious hasn't added a picture of Eminem in his skivvies?

Technology is fun. It's fascinating. It can make a boring class a bit more palatable for reluctant students. But it sure creates new stresses for the teacher. In the long run, however, I think it's worth it. Students are famished to see their world brought into the classroom. And I'm just as eager to incorporate this technology as well. Especially if it gets me a hit when I google myself. Now, when I find myself as a Wikipedia entry, or if some anonymous admirer creates me a myspacepage and adds me some friends, I will know I have arrived.