Sunday, February 17, 2013
Possible Hazards of Blogging
I suppose that blogging could have some drawbacks. What comes to my mind about an very real problem would be that students would only need to search for blogs about similar topics to find a good post and use it as their own. With so much readily available texts, teachers are always concerned about whether or not we have original student texts, or are students simply copying each others' work for a quick grade. The true purpose of blogging is to share your intellectual musings and receive responses to which you can also reply, but with so many blogging sites available, it is easier than ever for students to lift the work of others and call it their own.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
I would have to agree with you. My sixth graders recently finished our rock unit; the end project students had to research a specific rock and then use their talents to communicate what they had found about their rock. Another teacher became very suspicious of two of my students work because of the wording, say "they had to have copied it" and that I had to check. I lucked out in that they had used their words, but teaching sixth graders about summarizing, paraphrasing, and sitting sources is not easy and there is no time for it in any curriculum.
ReplyDeleteJocelyn and Christina,
ReplyDeleteI agree with you about the hazards of blogging leading to plagiarism. In 8th grade science we have had so many cases of plagiarism on homework assignments and projects. Students have either been copying from a peer or from the internet. They are very defensive when confronted. Any parties involved in the cheating automatically receive a zero for that assignment. In the beginning of the school year we made students sign a computer safety and integrity contract which we hold on to. We periodically remind students that they signed this contract therefore they need to follow it.
Natalie