Negotiating Professional Boundaries in Teacher Blogging

One professional development need that feels pressing to me is to get a better handle on privacy issues online and my ethical responsibilities towards students and people I work with.  I am an active reader of  content on the read-write web and enjoy the many blogs that stream into my google reader through subscriptions, "bundles," and "shares" by people I follow. However after this week's readings I realize that I am not taking full advantage of the write aspect of the read-write web. Firstly, I hardly ever comment or read comment threads because they do not appear in google reader; perhaps I should investigate other options for commenting on blog posts. Secondly, in the past couple of years, I have wanted to begin reflecting on and documenting my teaching in a publicly-accessible format but have found it challenging to find the right way to do so. First I had a password-protected blogger blog. Then I made a website using google sites, but it just sits there online and doesn't help me communicate with a professional network of like-minded people. More recently I started a tumblr for my classroom experiences as a grad student and (someday) teacher. However after reading about the importance of feedback to building personal learning networks, I am not sure tumblr is the best venue. The community features are not built to allow comments or discussion. I would like to focus on identifying the right forum on the read-write web in which to continue reflecting and exchanging ideas with the support of other educators. 

There are so many things I am curious or excited about in my current fieldwork placement, and I would love to figure out how to write about and share this experience ethically and responsibly in a semi-public forum such as a tumblr or wordpress blog. Often when I am reflecting on my own practice and the growth or interactions of my students, I would like to share my thoughts and experiences on my tumblr. However I am held back by the lack of clarity as to my ethical limitations as a teacher. Should I be posting to tumblr under a pseudonym? Can I write about classroom experiences as long as all identifying information about students is removed? Is it better to limit the accessibility of blog posts or to censor the content? I love the idea of reading and writing blogs as a way for teachers to support one anothers' practice and professional development, but these kinds of unanswered, blurry questions limit my own efforts online. I was trained in anthropology as an undergrad and whenever we did ethnographic writing or anthropological research with specific subjects (i.e. individual people or groups) we were required to follow the American Anthropological Association’s guidelines for fieldwork ethics. One caveat of the ethics code I keep coming back to is the need to negotiate boundaries and information-sharing with research subjects:

“Anthropological researchers who have developed close and enduring relationships (i.e., covenantal relationships) with either individual persons providing information or with hosts must adhere to the obligations of openness and informed consent, while carefully and respectfully negotiating the limits of the relationship” (American Anthropological Association, 2011).

My 6^th-8^th grade students in my first two years of teaching knew that I often shared their writing and comments as well as my own classroom experiences with other adults. They did not know that many of these conversations were actually happening online; I had a password-protected blog on blogger accessible to a small group of friends and family. Based on my anthropological standards for working within a community, this was unethical; I was observing things within a social setting, drawing conclusions, and then sharing my findings and observations only to people outside of my school setting rather than reviewing them with the school community (“fieldwork subjects,” as they would be known in anthropological circles). Some days I felt it was ethically okay to write blog posts that included classroom pictures as well as student writing because they were only viewable to readers I had invited (and I only invited friends from outside the school setting to become readers, preferring to keep this aspect of my personal professional development private). Although they did not have access to my blog or specifics about blog posts, I made it a point to occasionally tell the kids some of what I had learned through these adult-only conversations, and also to share the genuine admiration and curiosity other adults expressed towards the kids’ writing and work. Even though writing and posting was extremely helpful to my personal professional development and allowed me to garner the support and insight of trusted friends and colleagues outside of my immediate setting, it felt "shady" and I was afraid of being exploitative in writing down someone else's story.

Apart from these ethical concerns, I also had safety concerns about protecting my students' anonymity and ensuring their safety was not compromised through my infrequent blog posts or the password-protected Picasa photo albums of classroom projects. I was careful not to write the school’s name anywhere; because I found pseudonyms impossible to come up with and use consistently, I referred to students with the kids’ initials or first name. However I was still nervous that putting parts of my professional life online would somehow expose the kids to danger, ridicule or (more likely) embarrassment if they or their friends stumbled on it and were able to "connect the dots." I remembered too well my own embarrassment when a google search of my name turned up a silly question I posted to an early website in elementary school. Ideally if they google my name and find something I have written about a classroom experience, what they read will be both genuine and positive in tone, as well as not overly specific as to particular students’ issues or lives. However most times I would love to share a funny story or classroom picture of kids at work I err on the side of safety and don’t post.

Vis-à-vis students (particularly children), is there something akin to patient-doctor or client-therapist confidentiality that I can use to judge appropriateness? My test has been to only post things they already know or would not mind knowing, assuming they or their parents or my colleagues may one day stumble upon it.