Again I discovered these “meta” sites with cool links to others, which I will list below. However, I was disappointed to find I either could not get deep enough into sites to see what students actually said, or found they said nothing amazing or showed little creativity in the way they used the wiki. Still, I trust Vicki Davis’s comment that the students were excited, speaking their own language and using tools they felt comfortable with.
My first stop ended up taking me all kinds of places. What fantastic energy and enthusiasm Jennifer Barnett brings to her history and English classes! What generosity in sharing sites and advice with fellow teachers! One reassuring comment from Jennifer:
“There was a huge learning curve early on requiring some of my own time (a lot at first) to master web 2.0 tools. Now, it’s very easy. Most everything on the web that I use in my classroom works basically the same way. Be patient early on and ask for help when you get stumped. The world of educational technology is full of people ready to help you.” (OK, I pasted from a file I saved as Plain Text, and now I seem to have shifted fonts for the rest of this post. I can’t see a way to change fonts IN this window. Guess I should write my entire entry elsewhere, then paste it here and add the links. Next time!)
I also followed the Flat Classroom link and explored a bit, coming across great images purporting to give a history of the US in 4 minutes, set to a catchy tune. I need to check whether the lyrics to “We Didn’t Start the Fire” are the original ones; either way, they’re synched nicely with images that aren’t history, but rather memories, for me.
This site is also where I found a link to a bunch of videos that might come in handy.
I think maybe a wiki could be a way for my Creative Nonfiction Writing students to participate more fully in discussions of sample essays I assign. I’ve been able to find the full text for some of them on-line and thought I could post one, then give guidelines for the sorts of things I want to train them to look for and perhaps imitate. The essay I start with, because it’s short and given in the essay collection we use, 50 Essays from Bedford/St. Martin’s (ed. Samuel Cohen), as the sample for active reading note-taking, is Virginia Woolf’s “The Death of the Moth.” It’s far from easy in its diction, and a good example of the sort of questioning that essays often do.
To make the essay more accessible to my students, I can make links to define words they usually don’t recognize, insert a picture of rooks (none in Hawaii!) and maybe the kind of moth she seems to have in mind, highlight the personal pronouns (which shift in interesting ways), and provide a bit more biography than the book does. I may be able to find (and include a link to) a film or audio clip of this or some other Woolf essay; I think I’ve seen one for “A Room of One’s Own.”
That’s where I went on Wikipedia: Woolf’s biography. I’ve used Wikipedia before, and even had a student write a convincing essay on its increasing validity and the merits of common/shared knowledge. This site was a good example of a work in progress, with invitations to provide additional information and citations where they were missing, and disclaimers about some of the information. I like the bibliographies usually included. They provide constant reminders to students to document their sources to avoid plagiarism.
I probably won’t use the Wikipedia bio, though; it includes details on sexual orientation and abuse that aren’t necessary to understand the essay, and may be distracting or troubling to my students. They can discover it on their own if they want to know why she was suicidal. I’m sure I can find a milder bio somewhere.
So am I going to try this for Thing 9? I’ll look at it tomorrow. I’m kind of excited to try it!
