Over the past few weeks, I’ve been focusing primarily on the Tech Fellows aspect of my EduTech project. A few weeks ago, I began working with Martha, a History teacher at my school, to figure out how she could use technology more in her classroom. We talked a lot about her use of the school’s discussion forum - she’s an early adopter. I figured she should start a blog that would allow her to post items for the class and would require students to post, comment, and respond to other students’ work. You can see her blog here: http://marthasclass.edublogs.org.
Conversation
One of the problems with her use of the forum, was that it wasn’t being used to start a conversation - basically, it was an alternative way for the students to turn in the homework. Even though a discussion forum is a fantastic way to have a group conversation, conversation and response weren’t identified as requirements. On her new blog, students are being graded on their ability to comment and respond on other students’ work.
This mod, each of you will be responsible for writing 1 starter post (about 250 - 500 words) and commenting on other people’s posts 3 times a week.
Right now, a students posted homework assignment has 22 comments! To me, that’s a successful conversation.
Confidence
When Martha first asked students to post their homework assignments to the forum, students started complaining about the use of the forum, on the forum. I saw two major complaints: they didn’t understand why they were posting to the forum and they were uncomfortable with their work being available to other students (they were nervous). First of all, I was amazed that this conversation hating on the forum was happening on the forum - without the forum, the technology, the students would never have shared their ideas in such a way. Martha and I decided that one of the goals for her new blog needed to be about helping them become more confident in themselves and more comfortable sharing their ideas with classmates. I have gotten a lot from blogging; these days, I’m not afraid to write to the world, and my writing skill has improved (practice makes perfect).
Is it working?
So far, I haven’t heard, or seen, any public outcry about the blog on the blog - seems this is working out. There’s one other teacher at the school I know of using a blog to post homework assignments, and hopefully, I will be able to use these two teachers as evidence that installing Wordpress MU (Multi-User) would be a good thing for the school.
Kabren Levinson is fist-year student at Bard College. Throughout high school, Kabren has worked in various technological, political, and artistic positions. He has worked as an intern at the MIT Media Lab Computing Culture Group and during his senior year of high school, he developed an Academic Technology program at the Cambridge School of Weston. He has been podcasting for over three years and has been blogging for two. Kabren is a philosopher, technologist, and artist.
I really wish that schools would choose an option like this instead of Blackboard or something similar to it. In my experience, Blackboard is just a mess when used on a daily or even semi-weekly basis, and ends up doing more damage than good. Obviously, a blog isn’t a viable solution for massive classes, but something more like a forum would definitely be a step in the right direction.
I haven’t heard great things about Blackboard. Seems to be a pretty closed system. Forums, Moodle, Wikis, multiple blogs, all the technology is there…
Sophie was telling me how awesome it is in the car the other day, so I would say it’s working quite well. And I wish some of MY classes were doing it . . .