November Learning, "The Digital Farm"

This is exciting to me. One of the areas I hoped to explore is how to integrate new, emerging social media tools in the classroom. This article gives fantastic ideas and a few really get the wheels turning.

First, using Google docs as a collaborative project that students can access at any time. I feel this would be appropriate in my class during activities like literature cirlces. Each group could be working on a different book and a different document. At the end, they could use it as a "Cliff Notes" type reading guide for other students who may be interested in the book. The goal would be to help each other build and revise the document in a meaningful context.

Next, I love the idea of a research station. In differentiating instruction for different learners, each student or pairs of students could have specific research to do on the computer during class on their designated day. This could be research related to that day's lessons (for example, if you are introducing a novel or story, it could be background about the author; if it was a writing unit, it could be finding examples of that type of writing); the research could be uploaded to a wiki, podcast, or blog, for the students to access.

Podcasts are particularly intersting for me. I feel this may be an excellent way for students who struggle with writing to capture their thoughts and communicate their ideas without being weighted or constrained by writing. It would be a great alternative assessment tool for students who do not have the writing skills or have other barriers to writing (like ESL students, who often do much better in spoken academic English than written).

Finally, I think it is surprising that KIVA was mentioned in this article. I have encountered KIVA through my church, but never thought to connect it to the classroom. Exploring opportunities for the English classroom may take some creativity, but there are still opportunities there. It would be interesting to track a KIVA project as a business proposal and see how many people you could persuade to fund your project.

Ultimately, I feel that comfort with these tools is key to including them in the lesson plans. What excites me, though, is that it is a chance to revolutionize the content and instantly make it more relevant to the world around us. Giving students a chance to partner in their own learning and become authors of their own content would be something that most kids would embrace. Creating and guiding their own way through the concepts would be motivating, interesting and make the classroom environment an exciting place for everyone.