I have, however, been struggling somewhat with this issue this week. I am excited and torn. I am excited because I think that the sharing of ideas and examples of the our students' work is amazing and exciting as stated above. I am, however, torn because I am worried about privacy issues with regards to the safety of my young students.
A few years ago a student posted an innocent picture of herself and some friends hanging out outside. Because the house and house number were visible, some guy found out where they lived. Thankfully, the girl told her parents that some guy had contacted her wanting to meet face to face. I realize that these kinds of things don't often happen with sharing students' work online, however, I think it is a consideration especially when we are working with young children. Older students who are on "Facebook" and "Twitter" are putting themselves out there, but hopefully they are stranger savvy and have a good understanding of how to keep their personal information as safe as can be.
After perusing Julia Hengstler's "A K-12 Primer for British Columbia Teachers Posting Students' Work Online" (retrieved from a link on her blog: http://A K-12 Primer for British Columbia Teachers Posting Students’ Work Online) I have realized just how important it is to be very cognizant of making sure that if we are posting students' work online that we understand all of the safeguards that are needed to try to ensure the most optimal safety that we can provide is in place.
One of the things Julia talks about is how a student can be identified with as little as the student's first name and information about the class or the teacher. I asked myself if this is any different than a student's full name being used in a newspaper? In some ways no, but in other ways, yes. Unless it is a national paper then the likelihood of hundreds of thousands seeing it is unlikely. However, does it take hundreds of thousands for one wacko to find that student? Another item that Julia talks about is that even if a site, such as "Weebly", is password protected, a parent could still cut and then paste items/pictures onto a more public site, hence the safety parameters are null and void.
After much thought, I have come to the conclusion that safeguarding our students from cyber-wackos is not much different than safeguarding them from someone on the street who may try to steal them. The difference is the way in which someone may approach a child. We can't protect all of our students from every person out there who may want to hurt them. All we can do is to continue to educate our students and our parents about how to keep themselves as safe as possible and to educate educators on the safest way to share their students' work online. I think it is a good idea to have a look at Julia's Primer, which is a good resource for keeping our students safe online.
Should the risks of possibly exposing students to predators be a reason to not share students work? Not if the safeguards that are available are in place to the best of our ability. I guess you can look at it this way, a parent can do everything in their power to baby safe their homes for their child and yet you can't safeguard them from everything. You can put cupboard and door safety locks on every cupboard and door, you can put a toilet lock on the toilet and believe that you are keeping your child safe. What about the things on which you can't put a "lock"? There are endless things that could happen to injure a child, no matter what you do to prevent it. A fall from a chair, a hot stovetop, or many other prospective "dangers" in the home. Does that mean we clear everything out of the house and rubberize the walls and floor? Maybe that is being a little extreme. Sharing students' work online is somewhat like trying to baby-proof your home, you do the best to make sure you use the safeguards available, but you can't protect them from from everything, but that is life, isn't it?
In conclusion, I have decided that not to share students' work online would be a tragedy, not only for the education community, but for students as well. I have gotten so many great ideas from the internet which have been greatly beneficial to me and so exciting for my students.