Mar 05 2008
Thing 2
In a recent review in preparation for the upcoming 8th grade technology literacy assessment test, I polled the 8th graders on their use of social web sites like Facebook and MySpace. Very few of the students reported not having a page on one or more sights of the kind. I was further amazed upon questioning them as to how much time daily they spend on these tasks. The video entitled “Students are Changing: A Vision of Students Today” certainly was right on target with the amount of time students spend online at sights of this type. If this kind of technology is able to hold their attention, then it seems rational to me that I need to be creative in finding ways to implement this kind of technology into my lessons to prove to my students that I forward thinking in my use of technology. That type of common bond would certainly seem to be a bridge to building stronger teacher/student relationships as well as going far beyond the norm to gain the students interest. If I utilize these tools creatively and effectively, I will give students with the ability to move at a quicker pace the freedom to do so while I can direct my immediate attention to students who need more one-to-one help. This would also be a great opportunity for peer-to-peer instruction.
I can see that this type of technology is going to be of great benefit to me in my professional practices as more professional learning funds are directed toward the four main academic subjects at the middle school level. I will need to depend on Web 2.0 technology to help be get additional training and instruction that I need to be more successful and up-to-date with current trends/technology.
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My impression is that our jr. high students are not as heavily into Facebook as I’d thought, but certainly a majority of the high schoolers are (or at least have friends whose pages they check and respond to). But when I mention 2.0 tools beyond that & YouTube (social bookmarking, blogging) they have no idea what I’m talking about. I’m not convinced that my library needs a Second Life or Facebook, but I sure would like students to branch out from strictly social tools into information-finding ones.
Any ideas??