Just a snippet of the post in Spanish below...
Today I met with Camilo, the student who has been helping me with the school website. By the end of the meeting he asked me if he could have a blog in the school website. I didn't doubt. Yes! Of course! I said. I immediately granted permissions for him to blog. He posted his first entry tonight... and some unforeseen problems came through... Today I also told him about the Sites teachers will be making, some changes in the school curriculum and the laptops we're getting for students. He blogged about that, of course, and some of it, especially the curriculum change is something the Principal and Academic Director should inform the students of, not a blog post froma peer that still has some incomplete information... possibly confusing. News fly in the blogosphere, doesn't it? The post was up for about two and half hours before I read it, and I could see some people got the chance to read it... some 15 visitors to the site. The decision wasn't easy, but I put it in the moderation queue and modified the settings so blog posts submitted by students will always be moderated before publication. Teachers and administrators will be able to override this setting, but students' posts won't be immediately publised. I feel like somewhat of a fascist, but can't see a way out. I don't think I'll have to censor students (only extreme cases would merit this), but this taught me something I should have known... I won't be able to predict or control what is published in student blogs (or any other for that matter)... sure, that is the point... I'll have to be more careful with the things I tell students before they are "officially released" and think a little more about how to manage student blogs. I don't like the hypercontrolling scheme I put up with every post requiring moderation. It think I'll have to discuss this with the principal. Students should have blogs. That's my standing. They should be allowed to talk about whatever they want... they should be able to leak information (as "real" journalists do)... but just for now, before school begins, I can't priviledge one student, however hard he has been working to get the website up and running. I guess I'm saying I'll allow unmoderated blog posts once school starts. I feel really fascist by unpublishing Camilo's post.
