This week’s readings certainly gave me a lot to think about. I really like the idea of using technology in the classroom to enhance student learning by providing them with more authentic forms of writing, creating online relationships and communities with others, and placing a greater responsibility in the hands of the students to perform to the best of their abilities. But, let’s break it down even more…
Blogs. I think that blogs can be a great way for students to write down their thoughts and receive feedback from both peers and educators. The blog is informal, yet, has a more authentic and wide range in audience. Today, blogs are easy to create and control; with a handful of keystrokes and a few clicks of the mouse, you are good to go.
Wikis/Nings. The wiki/ning idea is great in that it provides a user-friendly arena in which a teacher can post unit materials and create online communities for students and their families. I love the idea of creating a wiki/ning with students from across the ocean and around the globe. The ability of technology to so easily cross distance and combine cultures can be a great way to expose students to different perspectives, provide them with communication skills, and connect them with new people and ideas. It is also through these sites that one can easily facilitate and/or participate in online role-play.
Online role-play. While I have never participated in online role-play, I can see the benefits. I think that it can provide students with the time to carefully prepare for a debate while also providing them with the safety of a role from which to take their stand. For me, debates are frightening. I would much rather take on the persona of another individual and present a researched argument from their point of view than to ambivalently take on a position that I might personally be indifferent or undecided to. The ability to create or research an opinion and to communicate through online communication provides a more genuine basis for the debate. Online role-play also creates the opportunity to monitor and analyze different arguments, connect points to related online material, etc., as suggested in the Beach and Doerr-Stevens article.
Of course there are many other ways to get students writing through the use of technology, whether it be through photo-essays, iMovies, digital storytelling, etc. With the ever-expanding arena of technology accessible to students and schools, it is important that we as teachers utilize these emerging tools for the benefit of our students. It is important that students find support and instruction in how to use these technologies to express their ideas in the same way that teachers provide instruction on how to write a five-paragraph-theme essay. Each and every writing experience in a student’s life is important and should be valued; it is up to us as teachers to help students broaden their definition of “writing” and to help them explore their talents for creating new types of texts.
Link:
http://digitalstorytelling.coe.uh.edu/index.html
This is a neat link that provides some examples of digital storytelling, an overview of the tools necessary, lesson ideas, how to get started and evaluate projects, and even handy links where students can find free sounds and images. It could be a great way to get things going and learn to incorporate digital storytelling into the classroom.
Meredith,
ReplyDeleteYour blog rocks, as always. You get an A.
I really like how you mentioned that it is “important that students find support and instruction in how to use these technologies to express their ideas in the same way that teachers provide instruction on how to write a five-paragraph-theme essay.” Definitely! I think that a lot of the technological tools that students have access to allow them to produce polished and professional-looking products that may not have required much thought: With iMovie, for example, a student can slap together a bunch of pictures, add titles and a soundtrack, and it will look like a million bucks. As teachers, we need to make sure that the selection of their materials (pictures, music, text, etc…) is justified in the larger context of what the assignment is asking for. Just because it “looks good” doesn’t mean it is successful. Like you said, we need to help students “explore their talents for creating new types of texts.”