Today’s podcast features some thoughts about anonymity, both with students and with teachers. Curious to hear what you think. Does anonymity have its place in the classroom? How about anywhere else?
On a side note — I’ve been doing about one podcast a month for a little while now. Should I be doing more? Fewer?
If there’s an interest, I’ll keep trucking away — but if I’m only entertaining Ani and myself, I’ll quit uploading the files — although I can’t guarantee that I won’t keep recording.
Links from the podcast:
Justin’s Faculty Room.
Keep them coming.
Keep them coming.
Agreed! It’s always great to hear your thoughts on education and technology, and your co-pilot’s additions to the podcast are very thurough 🙂
Keep the podcasts!! As for anonymity I am not sure how I feel? Saying that I can’t think of too many times of it being useful in a place where a learning community is occurring. How can one be anonymous and part of a learning community?
Oh and as for your co-contributor in the backseat she does great work:)
Keep it up – this is one of the first podcasts that I found.
Please keep going. I enjoy listening and learn lots. The podcasts always give me something to think about and I look forward to seeing a new one in my iTunes.
Jo
As far as anonimity goes with my kids’ writing, I will allow pen names for shared pieces. However, I must know who wrote what — if for no other reason than to give teacher responses. This allows kids to write about sensitive subjects safely, while controlling lapses in judgment, which my high school freshmen definitely have.
Enjoyed the podcast, good things to think about and thanks for the stream of consiousness post! I don’t know if I completely agree with you on the anonymity… there are many different communications media where people don’t use their real name, both online and offline.
Many people have a desire to make statements that may endanger them in some way, in this case they use the anonymity as a shield from whatever danger they face. Other folks just don’t want their personal information thrown about. It’s all schism anyway!
Excellent cast! Sorry that it took so long for me to listen in. Thank you very much for the plug. You raise very interesting questions regarding forged anonimity in chat rooms.
I have been trying, since I came to my district, to form an online forum where my students can ask each other, and me, questions. I know that many students won’t come to ask me questions because they are either afraid of ridicule from their peers, or, as a students stated today, because they are afraid of me. I can be very intimidating to my students, even when I don’t mean to be.
A certain level of anonimity for the students would be a very useful tool in such an instance. Each student would register a handle, or user ID with the teacher at the start of the year and no other students would know the handle of anyone else.
I’m pushing my supervisor for something of this kind, like a virtual office, but so far, I’ve come up with nothing.
Anyway, thanks again for the plug!
Justin
Hi, enjoy your podcasts. This is nearly a month late, but I’ve had a lot of catching up to do! I agree with C. Hatton Humphrey above. I use a degree of anonymity in order that I can remain free to write (and maybe one day also podcast) about my work without fearing a backlash. We’ve all heard horror stories recently about people being fired or raked over the coals for things they wrote on their blog; some summarily fired without the chance of stating their case. I’d rather not go through that! So anonymity can actually be a way to be MORE (not less) truthful. And I disagree that anonymity allows someone the licence to just say a whole bunch of unsubstantiated stuff, to lie, in other words. The same rules about checking your sources still apply, whether the person blogs by their real name or not. It makes no difference. And blog-readers DO check (not all of them, and not all the time), so if I want to say a bunch of complete nonsense online, pretty soon people are going to wise up and stop visiting. As I wrote here, I don’t think telling the world exactly who you are has any bearing on your credibility. Your credibility comes from your writing, your track-record, regardless of who (you say) you are. And there are lots of good reasons (such as protecting your family and loved ones, your work relationships) for using a pseudonym. Someone I know always wants to know WHO made such-and-such a criticism. This person then accepts or rejects the criticism, not on its merits but simply depending on WHO said it! I’ve since learned to never give them name of the person when passing on opinions to this person (even, or particularly! when those opinions are my own).
Or am I getting “anonymous” mixed up with “pseudonymous”?