Thanks for inviting me to blog at Kairosnews. I am really looking forward to it.

Wondering who is reading your blog? Well, if you are a student, you might think twice about pouring your thoughts and feelings about school, teachers and fellow students into the virtual world.

Lisa Kim Bach reports in an article called "INTERNET DIARIES: School discipline questioned" that teenagers blogging about daily student life are being reprimanded by school officials. Wesley Juhl and Angie Scaduto were both punished for the comments made on their online diaries - comments that were taken out of context.

Scaduto now allows only registered 'friends' access to her online journal. Juhl didn't use his real name on his blog, but he gave up his online identity when questioned by school officials.

This incident has serious implications for numerous students who record their teenage angst online daily. School years is a time where kids should be expressing themselves and defining their self identity. Blogs seem to be an ideal way of doing this. But at what cost?

Do schools have a right to monitor students when they are at home? Does the school district have any right to censor off-campus speech? Do we need to start thinking carefully about who will be reading our blog thoughts and follow Scaduto's action by having password protected blogs? Or do we start censoring and self regulating ourselves (Foucault anyone)?
Other comments and articles here and here .