Without realizing it, I seem to have hit upon a hot topic in the technology in education blogosphere with my post about student blogging yesterday. I was simply thinking about concerns I have about my own students — and reminded that I had meant to post about those concerns by Bud Hunt.

I have been visiting the posts written by others, and I wanted to say that I wholeheartedly encourage the use of technology in education. I have found blogs and wikis a valuable resource. My students aren’t yet participating as much as I’d like, but I see some real potential. What scares me is the “blogging” they do on their own time. I am concerned that they are posting things that could lead to their harm. I think it is our job as educators to, well, educate them about the dangers online. Actually, I think it is the job of parents, but I have to wonder how many of my students’ parents can possibly know they have MySpace.com sites when I read the things they post on them. I floated the notion of having a learning session with students during one of our morning programs, but I haven’t yet heard from the powers that be.

That said, I think benefits outweigh the risks, and I hope that was clear.

You can read some excellent posts on this topic at:

• We Are Afraid at Dave Warlick’s 2 Cents Worth
• We Are Empowered at Dave Warlick’s 2 Cents Worth
• Generation @ at Weblogg-Ed
• Blog Writing at Mousing Around
• Alarm Raised at Instructional Technology in Tucson

If you’ve seen others, let me know.