Don't Feed the Trolls- Learning and Leading with Technology

The next article I reviewed was entitled "Don't Feed the Trolls: Using Blogs to Teach Civil Discourse" found in the Learning and Leading with Technology Journal May 2008 issue pages 12-15. This article was published in 2008 by Karen Work Richardson.

The article provides educators with some important guidelines in teaching and modeling civil discourse on blogs. The title of the article refers to a name given to those who do not model appropriate civil discourse on the web, they are called trolls. The key points of the article are that students need to understand the same guidelines they apply during recess, walking the hallways, sitting in class, talking to teachers and others students are the same guidelines they should use in chat rooms, blogs, comments areas, etc... If you wouldn't say it to a teacher face to face, you do not say it in a comment on their blog. The other key point is that educators must be modeling the same guidelines they expect their students to follow. Use "I" statements, do not name call, and avoid labels are some of guidelines suggested by the article. My favorite guidelines were "discuss ideas, not people" and when you do encounter a troll "ignore them". The article argues that civil discourse is at the heart of our democracy and thus teaching such behavior online or off is vital to our society. The author also provides references at the end of the article that teachers could use to look up MOOse Crossing guidelines that are a source referenced to in the article.

Being in a 1:1 school (every student has a laptop) civil discourse is a big concern. In fact, civil discourse I would argue is one of the reasons most schools and staff avoid social networking websites. We live in fear as educators of the potential troll like behavior our students could exhibit. I disagree with this concept of living in fear. The article summed up the approach I would like to have in using blogs, Facebook, or Twitter in my classroom. No longer can we as educators ignore and avoid this technology, by doing so we are neglecting a responsibility to teach our students about civil discourse online. It is our duty to teach students how to avoid becoming trolls online and how to recognize the negative aspects of social media and not engage in them. By doing so, we will model for them positive uses of these forms of technology. No longer should we live in fear, but embrace what is already relevant to their lives and teach them how to be successful in cyperspace. Just as we take time to teach students about classroom interactions, we should take time to teach them about respect during online interactions.