Early in my career I worked at a school in which there was a real reticence among staff to use the large gymnastics equipment during PE sessions. There was a clear risk involved in letting the highly energetic children climb up the bars or use the beam. Stories were rife among the staff of pupils they had heard about who had fallen, broken limbs and been impaled on sharp pieces of wood. The equipment was also a real pain to get out and put away and the pupils needed reminding of the safety rules at the beginning of every session. They seemed to forget every week! The large apparatus was thus avoided and the risk of serious injury was eliminated. The children had to make do with floor exercises literally in the shadow of all the exciting gymnastic equipment.
When OFSTED came to call they did not accept that total avoidance of risk was an acceptable excuse for not offering pupils appropriate learning opportunities.The challenge of minimising risk while allowing pupils access to learning (and teaching) experiences is one that schools have to contend with in all areas of the curriulum every day of the week.
Fortunately, the this story has a happy ending. The teachers were given practical training, instilled with confidence when using the apparatus and were taught the importance of giving pupils ownership and understanding of the rules for safe gymnastic sessions. The minimal risks are still there but so is the gymtastic action!
The fears were quite understandable but in the end an acceptable solution was found because the school (not really under duress from OFSTED) believed that pupils needed to enjoy the benefits of gymnastics. Blogging presents a whole host of motivating opportunities for teaching and learning but is accompanied by challenges and some degree of risk. However, a solution-driven approach to enjoying their benefits is in the reach of all schools. The question is do they really want them?
Back in 2001 I approached Mike Roberts, the head of my school, with the encouraging results of my use of a class weblog to extend the learning community beyond the four walls of the classroom. We discussed the plan to allow my own 10 year old students to create and run their own fully-functional weblogs. As a good leader of a school, he asked all the pertinent questions about security, child protection and publishing to the web.
They are questions that are repeated every time I visit a school or speak at conferences about the potential of blogging as an effective teaching and learning tool. And rightly so… we must take every reasonable care to ensure that our children are safe from potential harm. That is also true of every activity across the curriculum.
Solution or Excuse?
Leaders and teachers who ask me about weblog security fall broadly into one of two categories - those who want a solution and those who want an excuse. The first group of people are driven by a vision of students and teachers publishing their thoughts and achievements with real purpose to a real audience. They find the answers to the legitimate questions of security and they begin to harness the potential of blogs at the chalkface.
The second group are those who are looking for an excuse not to make use of new technologies in general and blogging in particular. The vision outlined above is for them, not a price worth paying to find a solution for their security concerns. Full of negative sound-bytes and horror stories, they eliminate all risk by avoiding it altogether.
If my headteacher had been in the last category, then my students and I would not have had the freedom to be creative and innovative with blogs and we would have missed out on positive memories that will probably last a lifetime. However, it was a freedom that was well thought through. Mike and I looked at the risks and minimised them. We looked at dream- and nightmare scenarios and our possible responses to them. We made sure the pupils had ownership of the project throughout, with clear expectations, guidelines and exhortations to be creative. Then we were set free to explore!
Tomorrow … How to earn the freedom to blog!
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