Ethics of VLE logs

Susan Sedro at Adventures in Educational Blogging: First Lessons Learned in Moodle has been using Moodle with her 5th grade class in Minnesota.

She has some interesting reflections on how it went. Part of her comments caught my eye, "As the teacher, you can read ALL the comments made in the chat room, even after the event. Although I had laid down guidelines about the chatroom's use, a few students went over to the dark side. They will be surprised when they discover that even though I was busy helping students while they chatted, I still know what they said."

Now I was reading an entry recently (and you might know I can't find it again) talking about is it ethical to "monitor" what students are doing online if we don't tell them we are doing so. It's a grey area at the moment but I suspect it won't be long before some student bring a legal case about breach of their rights. I watch and wait.