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.