Sunday, March 13, 2011

Making the Argument

I did this same post in the D2L discussion posts, but in the grades it showed up as a blog so I thought to be safe I better post it in both places.


Baby-steps are the key!  Start with a small, well thought out plan that is easily controllable and work to bigger and better things.


I do feel that my school is getting to be more open with web 2.0 tools.  I know that our newly hired IT person has made a Facebook page for the school.  Although, it is blocked while at school—which I sometimes feel like that is not so bad.  I understand the point that blocking students does nothing for teaching them the right uses, however, I just think that there are other avenues that can do the same thing in the classroom that are more safe and manageable.  I hate being so negative, but shouldn’t the majority of this responsibility be the parents?  Why does everything seem to be pushed off on the educators?  There really should be parenting classes for the 21st century child!


On that note our Google accounts have access to the same type of things and just seem to be more private and more convenient because they are all in one place.  There will always be students who try to abuse the system (like one of my co-workers has quickly discovered with students using GoogleDocs as a way to “text” back in forth in class).  This seems to me the same as passing notes back and forth just in a digital format.  Good classroom management is the key to avoid these types of things.  Kids will be kids and will always try to find ways around doing what they are supposed to be doing unless they are engaged  in what they are doing or have clear expectations and consequences. 


I love the idea of using blogs, class discussion forums, collaborative document/presentation/survey builders, web design in the classroom and quite frankly these are very easy to get the administrators on board with.  First of all, I have a plan (really that should always come first when wanting to use a tool).  When you have a purpose for the tool and standards you are accomplishing it makes it really easy to get their understanding.  Second of all, using ones that are “private” or more manageable make it easier for administration and technology staff to give the ok.  This is why Google for the school is such a great thing—we can control how private or public we want to make things.  I plan to start being very private just to see how things go and then as we find more and more uses we can start letting them be more public when appropriate or “safe”.   


I am a math teacher and this is a use that I am actually considering doing for next year.  I have already had the idea of doing my math journals as a blog post, but the following site gives a great way to incorporate communication and individual responsibility for discussions/blogs. 


http://apps.mrhiggins.net/how-we-blog-math


This teacher has one student in charge of summarizing the concept learned that day while incorporating other math tools.   They then are in charge of choosing who will be the next “scribe”.  The great thing about this is that it makes the student talk about what they learned.  The element I would like to add is having other students comment or ask questions—this way they can get a dialogue going.


I also like the idea Prof. Schroeder gave me about having students be responisble for explaining one of the homework problems to the rest of the class and then students can comment back and forth.  I would not do this with the whole assignment, but I do like the idea of picking one or two problems and having students responsible for those problems.  I also like the idea that this will motivate students to actually look at the discussion (it gives them help on a problem) and then if things are not clear they can comment back and forth.  This is a great way to get them talking about the process of solving the problem and communicating about the things that they are learning!  Great idea--thanks Prof. Schroeder! 

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