However, I feel that I am constantly caught between a question of privacy and safety, and that of authentic publication and interaction. For the most part, my students work in a closed, password protected wiki that only our members can see. But occasionally I long for a wider audience for my students. A few years ago we created a gorgeous Webzine and I obtained parent permission to make the wiki public and shared the address with our school. That was a neat experience for the kids because other people were able to see their work.
Check it out : http://EaglesWebzine.wikispaces.com
However, there was no interaction, there were no comments, as there would be on an webzine. And there was no opportunity for participation in a real online community, dealing with authentic and current topics and issues.
Sometimes I wish that I could teach my students about modern language arts skills by participating in live online forums, discussion boards, and creating our own public blog. It would be a wonderful learning experience if we could read articles on Slate.com and respond with our comments. Or if we could publish or own timely blogs documenting this election year and link it to other public sites. However, as they are only 8th grade students, there is some opposition based on safety concerns, which I completely understand. The tension of being authentic and real, and being private and safe, seems to be constant.
I comfort myself by thinking that they are, as students do, learning in a gradual release of responsibility model. That they are not quite at the fully independent experience level yet, and that they are gaining enough out of what we do. And I dream of more possibilities!
