Wednesday, March 30, 2005
Principal bans blogging: "not educational"A Junior/Senior High School principal in Vermont has banned in-school blogging because "blogging isn't educational."
Principal Chris Sousa said the decision to block the site from school was made because blogging is not an educational use of school computers.In 1988, I was the writer-in-electronic-residence for a class of grade 2/3 students in Toronto, reading and helping them with their writing via 14.4K modems using ZModem transfers. Getting them to use to computer to write, revise, and critique one another was an amazingly powerful tool for unleashing their creativity and improving their communications skills. If this prinicpal thinks blogging isn't educational, he needs his head examined: he should be seeking out every student blogger in the school and giving them special time to blog more -- and giving them extra credit besides. Link (via Apophenia)But he's also urging parents to keep tabs on their children's blogging, with a particularly close eye to what personal information the student may be posting on sites like Myspace.com.
Update: Pinky sez, "The email address for the principle quoted in the article is sousac@proctorhs.org (found easily on the school's website). I've whipped off an email of protest and indignation. I figured I could make it easier for anyone else to do the same."
posted by Cory Doctorow at 11:36:10 PM
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