Do Web 2.0 Right

This article defines three elements that shape how the teachers they interviewed use web 2.0 tools in their classrooms. The three elements are instituting daily practice, carefully considering the audience, and teaching and enforcing appropriate behavior. I will consider how these three elements affect my efforts to incorporate web 2.0 activities in my classroom.

First of all, daily practice is a struggle as we have just one classroom computer. Therefore, I usually schedule at LEAST one to two days a week for each class in the computer labs and create assignments for students to access on my eboard. I can't wait to try out the ipod touches Kimberly wrote a grant for and is currently using with her students. I am already compiling many applications for daily use with that tool.

The second element is consideration of the audience. I believe that with middle school students this is critical and will make or break an activity. I love the idea of using blogs as communication between myself and individual students. I think they will be much more open to sharing ideas of a personal nature if they know only I will be reading it. I wonder if there is a way to create a blog where others cannot access the content? I will look into it. However, I also think a spirited debate on a less personal topic would motivate all of my students. For example, in my Cowboy unit students write a persuasive essay on their view of the treatment of animals in rodeo, ranch work, or charreadas. I would like to first have a web 2.0 debate for students to argue their position before writing their essay. This way they will see other perspectives before settling on their own stance.

Finally, the article discusses appropriate online behavior. The main idea I took from this element is to limit access to a particular class. For example, I created my first class wiki to be used by all of my classes. Now, I can see the advantages and would prefer to have a separate wiki for each class. One, it will give the class ownership, and two, it offers more security to students as they know only their class will have access to it.

So, I have a few changes I want to make based on the information in this article. I think the first thing I will do is create the separate wikis since I already know how to do that and it won't take forever to figure it out. One thing at a time...