The other day in class I shared the concerns coming out of the Dean's office about using Google applications for university business. (The main concerns being around copyright, privacy, and the fact that the information might not be backed up.) I'm going to start being more careful about reading user agreements before clicking "I agree" and would encourage all of you to check out the Blogger agreement. :-)
I've noticed that a couple of people's blogs have public service announcements in them now. If yours is one of them, did you place those announcements/ads there? Or did Google? Or did Google, with your permission? Why might this matter? Would it matter more if you were blogging with your own students? Are there shades of gray? In other words, is a public service announcement ok, but an ad for soda not?
What about applications like Facebook, which collect marketing data based on one's profile? Would that be ok to use in the classroom?
I don't want to scare people away from using technology, but I do think we have to become increasingly more savvy about our choices. Particularly as teachers! I haven't decided whether to stick with Blogger or move to Edublogs or another application for next semester... What do people think?
I can't end this post without mentioning one of my all-time favorite young adult novels--Feed by M.T. Anderson. What intrigues me about the book is that it suggests so much about how technology might change our lives--for good or bad.
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Hey Valerie, I just wanted to letcha know that I think I may have clicked something to add those ads, but I don't know how to get rid of them. I agree that it is potentially harmful and takes away from the point of the blogs if everyone starts advertising all over them...hmm...I guess in this new age of technology we are still entering and navigating through uncharted waters about what is ok and not ok for school settings, etc.
This topic is completely being under- investigated. Blogging tools make the content copyrighted. So because I used your program, you now own my thoughts and responses to something and can sell them to people based on how much of my own personal information I put up. Oh, what's that? You are going to put ads up and public service announcements that will now be associated with me on my blog? Great! Exactly what I want from essentially a word document on the internet. This is ridiculous and can really ruin a lot of people that are not careful with what they type. I mean, with facebook being available to the public potential employers are looking at it to find out information about you as an employee. Hmm, now the private and public lives are merged! The actors and actresses in Hollywood can vouch for how awesome this is. Having a watchful eye over you at all times is bad enough, but when it is you and your friends that are feeding that information in, it's almost self indictment. It's completely ridiculous to use information from facebook because it furthers connection between the employer and the employee. It is as if they are defined by their life choices outside of the workplace, regardless of if it interferes or not. What's worse is that even without uploading pictures or ideas that may end up incriminating you, facebook has an article on its page saying that they do use other methods of learning information about you as a person independent of just the website. This can mean any number of things and is ruining privacy, which wouldn't be as bad if every move wasn't judged and scrutinized over. This is a rant on the subject, but it is completely infuriating to know that I have to censor myself when wanting to share information over a source that is supposed to be about showing true feelings on. Total thought censoring and I hate it. So unfair.
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