Technology
When reading about technology the first thing I do is look at the publishing date. Noticing that this article was written in 2008, I take note to realize that it may very well be out of date in technology terms. Technology is always in a constant state of change. Stern points out that 1/5 of online teens kept a personal website and 19% of those kept a blog. According to a 2010 study conducted by the Pew Research Center, blogging for teens has actually gone down. What is growing rapidly is what they have listed as “micro blogging”. Which are the status updates on social networking sties. 73% of wired American teens us a social networking site, and 8% use Twitter. With technology constantly changing so does you online authorship. Youth aren’t creating webpage’s anymore; they are posting to their Facebook wall.
http://pewresearch.org/pubs/
Education
When looking at online authorship through and educational lens we need to realize that with young people they are constantly changing. Stern does a nice job of explain how adults and young people differ in their online authorship. In my class I have seen firsthand students want to write a blog to either express themselves, or ideas related to what we are studying in class. They are excited at the beginning to post to a blog but the newness wears off quickly. What I have found works better for my students is using Google Docs. This suite of applications allows my students to express ideas with text, email, chat, and presentations. They are then able to share it with me or others and receive instant feedback. It is similar to Facebook with the instant feedback but not a true social networking site.
Society
Stern discusses how youth write for themselves. I would say they also post for themselves. They using posts to help them express themselves in ways that they normally wouldn’t express. She then states that you value “empathy and identification” the most (p.109). I believe this is true. When they post ideas to social networking sites it is for them. Technology has just made it easier for them to do this.
I am very interested to know more about how you utilize Google and its many applications with your students. I see a great deal of potential with this “free” technology…and schools are always needing to take advantage of the low cost when it comes to technology.
ReplyDeleteMore than once I’ve researched how schools/teachers are using Google in the classrooms, but have found very few specifics. Is Google Docs the only application you use? What does the classroom application look like for you in action?
http://www.google.com/educators/index.html I think Google is really trying to market themselves to schools and teachers. They have a Google Teacher Academy which is free professional development for those who apply and are chosen. They also have a program which would train teachers to become Certified Trainers on Google Apps for Educators. I think participating in either of these would be very interesting and quite informative. Have you considered looking into this further? If you are already using Google apps in your classroom they would probably really like your feedback about its use.
Thanks Larinee for the comment. I piloted using Google Apps last year. This year the program went live to all 5th-12th graders. All 5th graders in my district are using netbooks with Linux instead of windows and google apps. They all have been assigned an email address that gets filtered through google and then the district. I can get you more info if you would like. So far after looking at data of students in writing, there has been an increase in writing scores on our state test.
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteHello Michael!
ReplyDeleteYou bring up an excellent point that I had not considered/overlooked. That is, the date of the article. When I read your post, I thought 2008 was recent since I am not a tech-guru and I was actually astonished to realize this is considered outdated in the tech-world.
As a math educator, what I really struggle with is selecting the right tool for the right job. There is so much technology out there and the selection process may be overwhelming for somebody like me that is not tech-savvy.
Michael,
ReplyDeleteI like how you identified the different categories as technology, education, and society.
I really appreciated your comment about how the newness of blogging became less interesting to the students and you had to change your methods or tools to re-engage them. I see this as a potential problem for progressive teachers trying to keep up with the forever changing world of technology. Nice job!
Thank you for your advice Michael and I think you are absolutely correct. I should try to learn one tool at a time. I probably feel overwhelmed by trying to learn all of the technologies my colleagues introduce me to. I enjoy utilizing all of the tools my colleagues suggest and I listed before with the exception of Study Island since, like you mentioned earlier, I find this to be a “babysitting” webpage.
ReplyDeleteMichael,
ReplyDeleteYou brought up some really good points. I agree with Lizzeth I like how you identified the different categories.