Blogs Allow Kids at Gilbert School to Express Feelings

The Arizona Republic
by Emily Gersema - Sept. 6, 2008 07:30 AM

Students, administrators and teachers at Gilbert Classical Academy have a new tool to express themselves that is rarely tapped by schools as a teaching aid: blogs.

Blogs have been available on the Internet for years, offering Web users an opportunity to opine on various subjects and post images in a personal journal that anyone on the Internet can read. But schools have generally not utilized them as a classroom tool because officials have such worries as: What if inappropriate messages are posted? What if a hacker steals personal information on a child or staff member?

GCA Principal Brian Rosta said that while his Web journal and blogs kept by the teachers can be viewed publicly online, the student blogs can be seen only by their parents, staff and classmates who have a login and password to access the private portions of the academy’s Web site.

“With these blogs, there’s a certain level of security,” Rosta said.

So far, GCA is the only school in the Gilbert Public Schools district with this program.

How it works

When a student or staff member writes a blog using the school’s eChalk software, it passes through two tiers of security. It is sent electronically to a committee of English teachers who check and make sure it can be posted within the school’s system.

With some writings, “you kind of get a window into their soul,” Rosta said. Students describe everything from the monotony of homework to poems about their private lives that can reveal some emotional problems that could interfere with their experience at school.

Once the teachers OK it, the blog goes through a second tier of security led by Rosta and the academy’s dean of students. They will check and determine if the content is appropriate and can be posted.

Vetting prompts questions about censorship, but Rosta said that the goal is to discourage inappropriate behavior to keep students safe.

Red flags

Rosta noted that the software contains a watch list of 4,000 words. If any of those words are typed in a blog and submitted, an alert message is sent to him to check the blog and halt its posting. Whoever tries to post inappropriate language could be disciplined, he said.

Cyberbullying - when a student sends text messages, e-mails or blogs to belittle or hurt someone else - also has been a concern, so students are barred from naming other students in their blogs.

“It’s all perfectly innocent,” Rosta said.

Rosta says he spends each night and a little time on the weekend reading blogs and clearing them for public posting.

Social networking

The eChalk software includes options for students to make profile pages, which they can use like an academy-only MySpace or Facebook page to post information about themselves, photos and their blog. All of the pages are monitored, and none of the students’ profiles are public.

Rosta said students don’t have to utilize the blog tool, but as soon as it debuted this summer, kids in the academy have been jotting everything down from prose to random thoughts. The academy’s Latin teacher, Cord Ivanyi, used his academy blog to keep in touch with students as he took a trip to Rome, Rosta said.

So far, the blogs have been a hit with the students. Of the 251 enrolled, 191 have used or tried to post blogs on the eChalk section of the academy’s site.

Rosta said the software eChalk works in conjunction with the district’s student information system, SnapGrades, which tracks assignments, grades and test scores and is for parents and staff only.

Copyright 2008 The Arizona Republic