In Steve Hargadon’s Ning site, he discusses six points to consider when creating Web 2.0 communities: http://www.stevehargadon.com/2009/01/some-things-ive-learned-about-building.html . Following are reflections I have made about two of his points and how these would be beneficial or not beneficial in a college classroom setting. First I would like to say that college courses are not “failure is free” settings.
Therefore, we don’t have to worry about our social networking site taking off or succeeding. Students will have assignments to do, and if they do them, they will get credit. If they don’t they don’t. Plain and simple, right???
Well, if the site is engaging, students will get into the social networking site and really delve in. That should be the instructor’s goal. How much of the “I’ve already done enough for my ‘A’” attitude would there be that might prevent students from totally engaging? (Sounds like a point for research.) I have even seen students who didn’t want to dive deep and really explore the lesson actually balk and drag their feet until it was almost too late in the semester to save themselves from certain failure.
Perhaps the problem with that particular class is the way the textbook author continued to drum it into students’ heads that they had to dive deep. Perhaps using a Web 2.0 process with interaction with other classmates would draw the diving deep out in an entertaining way where students would not even know they were being coerced into sharing their stuff and learning truths about what makes for a good student.
As for fulfilling some compelling need, I can envision a Web 2.0 wiki or Ning site where students get together to help each other meet the goals of the class. When students can successfully learn to do group work online, it will be great to see them creating a group Zoho presentation, (which my ENG140 students started doing last semester). It would also be great to create a social network with peers who attend workshops, and then post the items we create and share them one with another.
It seems like such a benefit to share what we have created so every teacher teaching the same curriculum across the country doesn’t have to start from scratch on every single assignment. Now that might be an idea that would fulfill a compelling need. How often have we come home from a conference full of great ideas only to be greeted with piles of mail and papers to grade, and then two months later we realize we have barely changed our teaching at all?
No comments:
Post a Comment