The best lessons are often the unintentional ones

Interacting with other classes through blogging is something I’ve been proud to do with my class for the last four years. Despite guiding and modelling best practice, every year there will be one or two children who will press publish without thinking through their decisions.

This is where the day takes a turn.

Without naming the children involved, the class looked at the comments from the perspective as a class member, a teacher and a principal. Those sections of the Language Arts curriculum about audience and purpose come alive. Vocabulary choice is debated. Digital citizenship, online audience, following community guidelines are all popping in discussions as thoughts are shared around the room.

For the children involved hearing their peers views, gives them pause to think about how they are interacting with the online world.

Those conversations are so much easier to have at 8 years old with teachers who care and the stakes are low than at 18 with university officials and future employers when the stakes are so much higher.