Day 4 Reflections

Day 4: Well, it's not even lunch time yet, and I'm pretty close to finishing my final project! I just have to put on the "finishing touches." I was able to create 4 wiki pages, one for each of my classes. Students in each class, in groups of 2-3 (they will sign up on the wiki!), are responsible for posting the vocabulary for each unit of study, in addition to other resources (videos, audio pronunciations of difficult-to-pronounce terms, links, images, etc.). I created a sample page on each class wiki to show students what I expect from them. I set up student accounts so that all students will have a user name and password to enter their class wiki, and I also set up links to each of the wikis from my FirstClass website. I am excited to implement the wikis this fall (but not so excited that I want summer vacation to end yet!).

I also read the article "Let's Talk 2.0" from Educational Leadership, and was reminded why it's really important for teachers to take classes like Tech Camp. In the article, the authors state:

"Outside school, many students are accomplished authors, filmmakers, animators, and recording artists. They are concerned with the quality of their work and the meaning it conveys. They spend hours tinkering with their media text or artifact in response to peer feedback obtained online. In short, many young people's online literacy practices engage them in exactly the kind of learning that educators value, in terms of quality of work, narrative power, character development, logic, and concept development. Literacy 2.0 is grounded in achieving authentic purposes and completing meaningful tasks. Unfortunately, it doesn't mesh well with such practices as book reports, comprehension questions, leveled reading tasks, and weekly spelling tests that students are asked to do in school."

Many of our students have amazing skills and talents that we might never know of if we don't allow them to use their creativity, often through technology, in class and on projects. A student who loves music and can play the electric guitar might be more successful conveying their knowledge through creation of a song instead of a pencil and paper multiple choice test. I'm glad I created the wikis for my classes because it might engage some students who otherwise might be totally uninterested in learning vocabulary to help them understand the content. Instead of just copying definitions onto lined paper, or even making flash cards on index cards, students now can type into a wiki that they share with their classmates. They can add their own "flair" by linking to videos, audio, etc., and when they go to study, they can view videos, pictures, and links instead of reading off of a piece of paper. Hopefully, this will lead to increased student engagement. I also look forward to incorporating more of the Web 2.0 tools we learned about this week into my teaching this coming school year.