What do you think? Should journalism schools restrict live-blogging or Twittering in class as distractions or use them as teaching tools? Should students be required to get permission before writing about what goes on in their classrooms?
Via Assorted Stuff, I just read an article about a college student who was banned from live-blogging from inside her journalism class.
It’s a longer read, but well worth it for any teacher considering allowing access to blogs, IM, tweeting-class tools, or more, in a classroom.
I feel strongly that the students (at the college level) have the right to take notes, record what’s going on… What’s different about live blogging it?
Lawfully, I don’t see an issue. Ethically, I think it would be in the student’s best interest to ask permission. Here’s why.
Legally, I can stand on a street corner and take a picture of you, sitting at a table, at a café with curbside seating. I’m standing on public property. While legally I can do that, it would be polite of me to ask you permission to photograph you. I see “liveblogging” a class very similar. If I give blow-by-blow accounts of what’s going on around me, or streaming video from my phone, and your actions are a part of what’s being “recorded” and “broadcast,” then… I think it would be very fitting for me to ask those being “captured” if it’s okay if I include them. I might change what I say or do if I know I’m being recorded in some manner.
As a professor/teacher, if the use of any technology or behavior was disruptive to the design of instruction I had planned, I’d try and exercise my right to request it not take place. It appears NYU needs a policy (quick) that covers this… giving that “right” to professors. In turn, they ought to use it responsibly.