It May Be Offensive, But It Is Interesting...

Warning: This Post Might Be Offensive for Some! Please read on though!

So after perusing my usual sites, I ran across a CNN article about a new-ish website called Chat Roulette. For those of you who are not interested in reading the article, basically, Chat Roulette is a website where visitors can randomly chat via a webcam with anybody else in the world connected to the site. All the user needs is a webcam and then an account. They then are taken to a user, at random, to chat with. Some of the more interesting applications would be teaching students about other cultures by having students actually talk with people of other cultures. Some of the examples are musicians playing their songs to their randomly selected chat partners, people telling jokes, or just waiting for someone to talk with. Unfortunately, the internet is a two-headed beast. Frequently, the site will take you to individuals doing more inappropriate things such as stripping or things even more unfortunate to mention, ruining a potentially interesting technological application. The potential for amazing collaboration is evident from the second you hear about the site. Students could have digital pen pals, no longer requiring detailed and timely letters, instead relying on short chats where the student could learn about a unique and intersting culture. Imagine a Geography project about Morocco where a student has talked to an actual Moroccan! Unfortunately, these sites often lead to miscreants and appears to have the perverted community running rampant through it. Is it possible, as a teacher, to feel comfortable with something so potentially inappropriate? Is there an actual application that you would feel comfortable with? It certainly brings up some intersting syncronous telecommunication. If you are interested in seeing a cartoon, which started my search for information about the site, click the following link. Careful, you MAY find it slightly inappropriate.

Penny-Arcade Comic

Social Networking For Teachers?

Saw this on my favorite blog, Free Tech 4 Teachers, and it made me wonder just how far social networking is getting. Is there such a thing as too far? Is it smart, safe, and educational for teachers (especially at the High School level) to use Facebook or other social networking? What about the possibility of a net-based school district? Could this be the beginning of a an entirely new method of teacher development and "training"? Just some thoughts.

Wiki Wiki Wiki Yeah!

So the process of creating class-based Wiki's is an interesting and dangerous prospect. I recently decided to embark on this journey by having students create visual biographies of important enlightenment figures in either PowerPoint or Word. Students were then required to submit their basic assignment to a Wiki that I created on Blackboard. While this assignment was fairly simple from a structural sense, I also attempted to make the Wiki instructions as fool-proof as possible. I know that not all students have experience using different types of technology, especially Web 2.0 that isn't Facebook, but I assumed that including straightforward, dummy-proof instructions would help any students who had trouble. Unfortunately, I was ever so wrong about this. Students deleted other students' projects, did not add their own, or completely blanked the page. It was simply shocking to go through the history and see students completely destroy the Wiki page because of a lack of understanding. What terrifies me the most about this situation is that it means the Sophomores in my High School at the AP level cannot figure out how to add a link with explicit instructions laid out for them.

Even though the Wiki element of the project did not work as smoothly as I had hoped, it does not mean I am afraid of Wiki's forever, but it does mean another skill set that students should have that they obviously do not. It means that, in the future, if I choose to do a Wiki, I will have to run a tutorial (which I even did for the previous project!) showing students just how the Wiki functions. Obviously, the more complex the project gets (not just adding files), the more difficult the instructions get and the higher level thinking required in order to see success.

How Strong is Your Blog?

I took a long time deciding how I wanted to start this post. Originally, my goal was to discuss Web 2.0, its uses in the classroom, and how wonderful a thing blogging can be in the classroom as long as it is used correctly. However, I was watching the Daily Show yesterday and he began to discuss the Blog-o-sphere's reaction to his mannerisms regarding other journalists (See Video).



After seeing this entertaining bit on The Daily Show, it made me start thinking about the use of blogging and teaching students about the strength of language being used. One of the things my AP students never seem to grasp is that different words have different impact. Saying "could" or "possibly" while writing a historical essay tells the reader that you have no idea what you are talking about. With blogging, students can write and reflect on what they learn and practice using language with different strength depending on what the situation is. Blogs do provide students the opportunity to practice their skill writing, which is something that we tragically fail to improve as teachers. Whether it is the lack of writing at home, the classroom, or a combination, students are not adequately prepared to be skilled writers when leaving for college. Web 2.0 can help improve these writing skills, increase and develop a stronger vocabulary, and develop a flexible style that can be implemented based on what the situation calls for.