Shutting Down K-12 Blogs

Will is rightly concerned about administrators thinking about Shutting Down K-12 Blogging:

"In my perfect world, student weblogs would be as free and open as a teacher (and parent) feels comfortable with because one of the best parts of blogging is having an audience that can become a part of the process. But I totally understand the concerns of districts and boards of education who are trying to figure out exactly what to do with this new read/write Web that we're exploring with our kids."

He was bouncing off this story, which just makes me shake my head in wonder. Most schools (and their leaders) just don't get the web. But on the other hand, these are sticky issues. Last year when I was thinking about privacy concerns in school blogging, a teacher had this nasty experience with a student threatening her in his/her personal LiveJournal blog. The idea of schools providing blogs for students always seems a bit pointless to me -- anyone can set up their own in about 90 seconds, and schools can't control them. The line between school technology and technology that students are using on their own to learn (and for fun) will only get blurrier.