Student Content

As ya'll are doubtlessly aware, Time Magazine selected "You," the independent web content creator, as person of the year. I'm curious to discover if we're taking advantage of this trend in the classroom. Our students naturally gravitate to these technologies. I'm trying to tap into this synergy in my classroom. I want my students to create original content using the tools given to them in class. I want students to take control of their own education, and to become passionate about more than the next "Lost" episode.

Here are some buzzwords that are associated with this trend, just in case you need a few examples:

• MySpace / Facebook
• YouTube
• Blogs (like our own Blogger)
• Flickr
• Wikipedia
• Digg and Del.icio.us
• Google Docs

I use several of these in class, but in a pretty passive fashion -- I show students what these things are, but I don't push students to create content and release it to the world.

Is anyone asking their students to interact online? Anyone using class blogs, or working on a wiki, or maybe have an assignment revolving around (gasp) MySpace ??!!!??

This is something I really, really want to do, but I'm not 100% comfortable with. I'm a technology teacher -- I teach how to use a PC, not what to do when someone disagrees with content created on your PC. Plus I sometimes (OK, usually) feel these non-tech assignments take up class time; valuable class time where I could (maybe should) be teaching something tech-related.

What Was the Question?

To blog or not to blog? That is the question I raised with the Teaching-Learning Team.

My inspiration, The Fischbowl, is a wonderful example of faculty interaction. I think several of us at NLC need this kind of interaction, and while opportunities do exist I think several of us bypass those officially-sanctioned opportunities for the same reasons I often do:

• Incompatible scheduling
• Dislike of time-wasting meeting "stuff" -- agendas, rants, descriptions of someone's daughter's birthday
  
• Discussion limited to a specific topic
• Inability to have a lengthy dialog on a topic due to time constraints
• Would really rather be at home, surfing while watching CSI Miami. (aka "multi-tasking.")
  

Blogs are a near-perfect answer to some of these issues. (There will still be rants, I'm happy to say, but no one will force you to read a rant!)

The Teaching-Learning Team didn't make it through the meeting agenda, so I didn't get to address the question to the group as a whole. I did ask two highly articulate team members what they thought of the idea while we walked down the hallway.

Silly me, expecting enthusiasm for assigning writing homework!! Any English teacher could have set me straight. Reflection . . . is that really something teachers should do? After a five-minute sales pitch I let these unenlightened souls vanish down the hallway. They're obviously not ready for this transcendental experience.

I still feel in my gut that blogging is a great way to foster communication, so I'm starting this blog without my compadres. For now I'll have to do what bloggers everywhere do:

Talk to myself.