This is what I'd like to show as a professional networking tool that I use, but obviously that won't work right now. This is a Ning site set up for a group of history teachers in our district who participate in a Federally funded grant to train teachers and prepare curriculum for other history teachers in our district. Becasue the site is down right now, you'll have to settle for other social networking groups farther down the page. I have a love/hate relationship with the Internet when it comes to learning. I personally love using it because information is literally at your fingertips. As a history teacher, I probably shouldn’t admit this, but I think that Wikipedia is 99% accurate when dealing with the historical “facts” about the curriculum covered in the 7th and 8th grade history standards. As an example, I showed my students a mini-series called Into the West this year. After a scene where it depicted the massacre at Wounded Knee, I was able to pause the video and discuss with the students some of the details of the massacre using facts from Wikipedia. I also find that the Internet is a great way to find primary source documents like the ones I used in my portfolio project this week. I believe that learning on the Internet is a powerful tool, and this class is helping me really delve into the possibilities of using more technology in classroom learning in either an online environment or a traditional school setting. I find myself spending more time than I had intended on the different sites and trying out the new tools.
On the other hand, I do believe that the Internet has allowed some students to develop lazy habits. Students generally want to use the Internet for their learning, and in past years I have seen this produce mixed results. Some students use the Internet to spark their creativity, but others use it as a crutch to simply find and regurgitate information. While I want my students to learn to use technology as this will help them in the real world, at the same time, I want them to develop traditional skills as well. I find some students hand in amazing reports or PowerPoint presentations using information and tools from the Internet, but some of those students are not able to then transfer those skills to real world applications or critical thinking skills that show higher levels of learning and understanding. I want students to use the tools that will help them be successful, but most importantly I want them to be able to think and create for themselves.
I am definitely finding the Web 2.0 tools are more geared toward student creativity than the technology tools we were trained in even five years ago. I intend to develop lesson plans and especially student projects that will tap into these tools. My goal is to create a learning environment where students can use the Internet as a means to develop the higher order thinking skills that they will need to be successful. That way they will have the technology base as well as the individual confidence to use their skills in the real world.
As far as communication and a sense of community, I have to admit that I am not a big fan of Facebook or those types of social networking sites. I have seen those pages used as a platform for students to say hurtful things to each other in a very public way. I saw a messy divorce become too public on Facebook, and I even saw someone accuse their spouse of cheating on them using Facebook once. However, at the same time I have to admit that I do have a Facebook page although I do not visit it often. I withstood the first several waves of invitations to join Facebook. Finally, when I saw an email from a former student mentioning wedding pictures, I broke down and created an account. Since then, I began receiving even more friend requests (most from former students), and because I don’t want to hurt anyone’s feelings, I usually log on about once a month and accept a bunch of requests. I do not usually post anything myself, and a while ago I received an email from a former student. She said that to people who don't know me, I probably appear online to be a creepy, old man because I have many teenage girls as Facebook friends, but I didn’t even have a profile picture of myself. When I added a picture of myself in the stocks at Williamsburg, Virginia, the girl emailed me again saying that really hadn’t helped.
I myself have nothing against Facebook as I know many people enjoy it to stay in touch with friends and loved ones. I myself just classify it in the category of things that distract me from learning on the Internet. There is just so much stuff on Facebook, it just feels like sensory overload to me. I prefer using tools that have a more specific purpose. I have used blogs on three separate occasions to chronicle a family trip – one RV trip across the USA, a trip to Europe, and a tour of the western states where we saw three Weird Al Yankovic concerts en route. Family and friends loved seeing pictures and following our misadventures. After some of the trips, I made slideshows and posted them on YouTube, and my kids still go back and watch them. The blogs and YouTube videos have become online journals and photo albums for our family. I even began posting some of my daughter’s wrestling matches on YouTube mostly so my dad who lives in Oregon could see them. Then my daughter sent her friends the links, and my wife began posting them on her Facebook page. Her video from last year’s Girl’s State Championship currently has 699 views.
As a final note on this rambling reflection, I do have to admit that just how open the Internet is does worry me. Of course, Internet safety is a concern, but even the accessibility to things like pornography is a concern for me as a parent and teacher when encouraging students to use the Internet more. The Internet is a valuable tool, but like any tool, it must be used with supervision and guidance when teaching a young person to use it for the purpose that will ultimately be the most beneficial.
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