Journal 6

Richardson, Karen (2008).Don't feed the trolls. Learning & Leading, May 2008, 12-15.

Don't Feed The Trolls

This article talks about civil discourse and students online. Most people assume that bad manners and rude behavior go hand-in-hand with digital communication and Richardson talks about how students should be taught in the very beginning about how to communicate properly and with good digital etiquette. The first thing to do is to give the students the rules but do not expect that to be enough. Rules are very general and students need interactive learning with civil discourse. Blogs are a good way to teach this because teachers can model proper etiquette and observe student communication. Self-reflection and monitoring is also an important skill allowing students to review and reflect on either their own past online conversations or other conversations between classmates.

How can a teacher start out using a blog to teach civil discourse?

Blogs are becoming increasingly popular as a digital educational tool as they should be! Teachers need to set the rules and model good manners and civil discourse within the blog in order for students in their classroom to learn to do the same.

Can blogs be educational?

Quality learning can occur online, both between teacher and student and also student-student interaction and the sooner a more professional atmosphere is set for online communication, the more effective the learning can be.