Guess what?!? Blogs REALLY DO WORK!

Report from the Boys and Girls Club Web page project: Two weeks before presentation and I am chewing my fingernails as the kids I'm working with simultaneously consider how to create text for the home page we are creating collaboratively and catch up on the latest gossip about Brittany Spears. This isn't a classroom, it's an after school program at the boys and girls club. Participation is entirely voluntary. I had my agenda and was pretty frustrated when they weren't seeming to follow any of it.

The kids have no problems opening up with a camera or video cam in their hands. But when it comes to words?!? You hit the nail on the head, Mrs. R: I'm going to be (and am)one exhausted ELA teacher. In a moment of ultimate frustration, I said, "why don't I just post some of these questions on a blog, let you think about them and write back?" HUH? BLOG? What's a blog?

O.k., so I didn't use this wonderful little tool in my project with the kids at all yet. Too busy sweating out the technical details of the web site, trying to garner the kids interest (easily established by popping cameras in their hands), and figuring out how to best work with groups that don't enjoy each other's company...

Hey, guess what? Blogs work! (O.k., o.k., profs, go ahead and say it: You told me so.) They loved the idea. The one group of 3 8th grade girls wrote more words as they created that blog than I have ever heard them speak collectively over the past month. Usually they sit together with these high tech phones (the name of this gadget is on the video for my presentation) talking online and intermittently to each other. I wish I had the stealth of a national geographic photographer and could sneak up on them to capture this phenomena without altering their behavior, but I digress...

So my agenda is changing. Instead of face to face focus groups to discuss what to write on the website, maybe our discussions will be more productive online... gives the chance to think and edit.

It's interesting... the 3-5 girls who meet in this group (there is another group of 3-5 boys) act TOTALLY disinterested. Sometimes I feel like I have roped and tied them into participating purely by my own enthusiasm. So I was shocked today when I suggested we look at another B&G club website to see what text they use...and one of the girls said, "We looked up another site the other day." (!!! INITIATIVE!!!) So this means something to them...they want to contribute. And to my surprise, the blog is becoming a better way to do that. Sometimes you just have to let the reigns of your own agenda go a little bit and try something different that might work better for them. Decentralizing authority.

Millenial Parent Orphans

Young, Dillon and Moje talk about how "the parents of Millennials resolved to stay involved in their children's lives (unlike some gen-x parents before them)" (Alverman, 114).

I've been thinking a lot about this lately as I observe 4 teachers in the Newark Valley School system. Classes here are generally divided by student ability. It's easy to see the students who have "millennial parents" described above. They're in the AP classes, generally. But I'm wondering about the kids whose parents aren't standing behind them academically. Who's helping them build their portfolios and how?
In at least 40% of the students I observed, there is an obvious absence of this mythical millennium parent.Who's helping these students build their portfolios? Their interests? Their range of experiences and thoughts? When does it start happening? Is anyone doing this? Or is it just up to English teachers? What about guidance counsellors? Administrators?

I'm glad that the authors included the case of Mario, but the vast majority of students who are millenium parent orphans don't have his innate enthusiasm. Somewhere along the line it needs to be taught.. let me guess. The English teacher is the best person for the job.

I was relating a triumphant "teachable moment" I had with a millenia parent orphan with my host teacher today. Giving me an all knowing smile, she said, "You're going to be one exhausted teacher." I hope though, that when I try to help expand a portfolio of a student that doesn't have the parent(s) described in the text, I feel energized instead of exhausted. Right now I'm wondering...

Tamara's "Ah Ha!" Moment

I've been struggling to come up with a topic that I could do as a project with kids as collaborative learners. Not having my own classroom, and finding myself in classrooms that use tech on a minimal basis, my creative skills were tested as I struggled to come up with a topic that would interest kids in an after school program. All of the topics I came up with fell on apathetic if not completely deaf ears... online book reviews, creative writing projects, even multi media life projects such as life stories...

Then in a conversation with a director, it was suggested I create a website for the club in collaboration with its young members as a sort of technology club. Viola! Instant perceived audience and instant interest.

Maybe I've bitten off far more than I can chew; website design is more than a little out of my comfort zone, if I want to do it right. But if nothing else, it drove home the potency of technology to draw otherwise unreachable students into dialogue.

Jeremy is not only upright, but standing

Fantastic article giving an example of a video editting project success story...

http://www.teachermagazine.org/tm/articles/2006/11/06/02tln_duff.html

Six Hours?!?

According to the NYTimes article referenced on our course blog, teenagers "spend six-and-a-half leisure hours a day switching among computers, TV’s, movies, video games, books, iPods, cellphones and texting." And that's a conservative estimate.

I think of my own daughter who will return from school in a few minutes and say, predictably, "Can I use the computer?" My response varies from day to day. of course, homework, piano, and pets need to be taken care of first. Then... if I am busy, sure, go ahead. Without limits, this little nine year old will be gaming on the Disney Website or emailing her friends in Rochester or Boston for literally HOURS. But 6 hours? To use a colloquialism, "OMG!"

O.k., this is a beautiful picture of socialization, but I have a few reservations. What about this juvenile obesity problem? Excercise takes time, too. Are these kids getting up out of their seats? What about the three dimensional world, and gaining new experiences of life outside of the screen? I hope we're not going to start saying, "It's o.k. if they don't, because three dimensional experiences won't be important in the flat world." Yikes! Aren't some of these power-down times what give kids the opportunity to develop that right brained thinking Pink talks about?