It is quite funny, but I haven't even thought about using everyday technology in the classroom. I use my cell phone twenty million times a day, either talking, texting or sending pics to my friends. I sit in front of my computer at least two times per day and television is my main squeeze. I guess that I have been looking at technology for the classroom as being something different than what I use on a daily basis. When I look at the different types of technology that I use in my personal life, I can now see the opportunities for teaching that they can help me with. For example, I use my Facebook to keep in touch with family and friends that I don't get to see very often. Everyone is using it! As a teacher, I could set up a Facebook page for our class and set the students up for chatting about particular topics or writing about what they think on the wall. In addition to writing about how they feel or what they think, I could have the students gather photos about certain things that they are learning and post them on the site for others to view. Not only would the page encourage my students to learn more efficiently, but it would also give their parents the ability to see what is happening in one of their child's classes at school. I would even encourage parents to post things in relation to the class on the wall as well. The email on Facebook would also be great for parents to write to me privately about something they may want to ask about their particular child without anyone else being able to see.
-Lisa Wojcik :)
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Lisa, I like your idea of how to incorporate facebook into the classroom. For me, I initially thought it would be a bad idea because I didn't think it would be appropriate to become facebook friends with my students, but I never thought about making my class their own page. Although, don't you think that some of the students may take this chatting too far and become sily and perhaps post inappropriate things? This is the only thing that I worry about. Also, what about the more strick parents that don't really want their students getting involved with facebook? If those certain students are not involved in the facebook chat not only would they be missing the discussions, but the other students may make fun of them because their parents are not allowing them to get on facebook. What do you think?
ReplyDeleteWhen it comes to the students posting inappropriate things, I could take care of that in the beginning for allowing them to join the page. I would set guidelines and make sure that the students and parents understood them by signing a sheet with those rules on it. Also, I would make the page apart of their grade. Like with any writing assignment, appropriate language is expected and if they don't abide by the rules set, then they are deleted as a friend and are given a 0 or receive other work to do instead.
ReplyDelete-Lisa Wojcik :)
Lisa, when you put it that way, it actually sounds like a pretty good idea to use Facebook in the classroom! I think the signed guidelines could definitely help to ensure that students stick with the assignment and don't get carried away with using the other features of Facebook. I know that getting a 0 for goofing around would be enough for me to stay on-task with the assignment!
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