Today we were in the computer lab, and the task at hand was for students to read and comment on the topic “What makes a movie sell?” Trying to model good blogging – at least insofar as linking goes – I had included a hyperlink in the text of the post that outlined their task. I noticed that many students repeated the same reading behaviour: they quickly scanned the text up to the hyperlink and immediately clicked the link without understanding why it was there, why they were clicking it, and what they were supposed to do when they got there.

This led to some frustration, but not necessarily to any lessons learned for the future. Therefore, I want to be more intentional about teaching online reading skills, but where to start? I found some tips for retaining what you read online that will do for now. The ones that seem most pertinent to me and my students include:

• Reflect: Pause periodically to let information sink in and reflect on it.
• Review: Take the time to go back and re-read parts that didn’t make sense, or to read parts that were missed.
• Read at a time when you can focus: The implications of this for the classroom are huge. How to create an environment where readers can focus?
• Be aware of visual cues: This needs to be fleshed out more for my students. That is, I think I need to take some time to talk about how a blog is typically set up vs. how a website is, and how that might change the requirements for effective reading.
• Map out what you are reading: Interesting, but is it realistic for students to adopt this as an everyday practice? Or would they simply benefit from using mapping occasionally in my classes so that it is a tool they can pull out when they need it?
• Outline the article: As above — would this be a good tool for me to introduce them to in the classroom?
• Use a bookmarks manager: I agree with this, but haven’t sorted out yet which bookmark managers are accessible through the school filtering service.

I think I’d add three more for my students:

• Think before you click: Particularly in a world of phishing and spam, I’d like students to be selective in their clicking habits.
• Think before you read: Ask why you’re reading an article. Why are you here? That should guide some of what and how you read.
• Drink less Red Bull before arriving in the computer lab

Doug’s thinking about reading skills and strategies has got me, well, thinking. As I approach this, am I trying to teach online reading strategies, skills, or both? What’s a good way to integrate this seamlessly into an already very full course?

And is anybody else already doing this with lots of advice to share?

I think that assessment can be more meaningful than this, but I am limited by the structure that I have chosen for student blogging. I am giving them a very constrained taste of the blogging world by asking them to comment on posts that I make on the class website. Evaluating on a comment-by-comment basis is not realistic.

What I am planning to do within this structure is to evaluate blog comments much as I do their almost-daily “ThinkBooks” or reflective journals. I won’t dive into every entry in a students’ ThinkBook, but I will check to see that they have at least engaged each topic. And the final culminating activity for the semester will require students to re-read their blog comments and ThinkBook to write and reflect on their own learning.

Konrad Glogowski has given me much to think about today in “Towards Reflective BlogTalk.” His ripple effect worksheets have students reflecting on and analyzing their own blog writing. It’s almost inspiring enough to make me consider having students develop their own blogs as part of my courses.

Almost.

This event reminded me of something of Dana Huff’s that I read a little while ago: “Don’t Feed the Trolls.” Her recommendation to develop a blog policy at first reading seemed heavy-handed. A blog policy? I’ve operated as if the internet is an ungovernable, unstoppable network, a place where policies would be laughable. But after checking out Dana’s own policy, I’m beginning to think that I may want to have something similar in place for my classroom blogs and resource website.

I am continually aware that blogging is still a rather unheard of phenomenon at my school. There’s a level of nervousness around it (and any other online activity) that needs to be addressed proactively. Developing policies for my class blogs, my resource website, and the class wiki would send the message that I hear the concerns and am doing all I can to alleviate them.

TeachersFirst offers a sample “wiki warranty” that can be adapted for use.  It reads long and stern to me, but it’s a good starting place.  I wonder where it will take me?

I thought for a long time (an hour is a big time investment) about the new-to-me concept of using a wiki for class collaboration. After reading Mr. B-G’s post about wikis, and as a result checking out Kristin’s “Not-So-Intimidating World of Wiki“, I felt emboldened. I hunted around and found some examples of wikis being used in ways that I think fit my own teaching style; a favourite was discoveryisms, which connects in so many ways to the English course I’ve re-organized around life’s big questions.

I ended up checking out free wiki hosting options. Wetpaint was ruled out almost immediately: despite its nice themes, it asks for a birth date to sign in (what’s with that?) and members of private spaces have to be emailed invitations. (I make a point of not collecting student email addresses.) I couldn’t find any examples of pbwiki use that I really liked. And not being so emboldened as to want a public wiki yet, I landed with a nice, safe private one (free for teachers) at Wikispaces. So now I will have the fun of launching an experiment in online collaboration with my Grade 12 English students this semester.

But that’s not all, nor is it even the best part. Another Grade 12 English teacher at our school, who has also set up a blog for his class, is interested in having his students participate in the brand-new wiki that I’ve launched.

I’m already benefiting from having another person thinking about and working on this with me. He has suggested that we create groups containing students from both classes to work on specific parts of the wiki, thus enabling cross-class collaboration. All sorts of possibilities are opening up here.

And my third bit of good news for the day: I’m going to have a working LAN in my classroom this semester! No more screen shots of interesting online texts for my classes. This is a very generous move on the part of our school IT person, who himself is a busy teacher and doesn’t need the extra work that comes with supporting teachers’ connections in the classroom. I am very grateful.

On top of all of this, it’s Friday. All around a great day.

Web 2.o is about control, authorship, and authority. Students aren’t getting the full experience because I still hold the reigns. I suppose I do it out of caution.

I am the only teacher at my high school who is posting student work to a blog for all the world to see. I am meaning to move beyond using my class blog pages as a place for displaying student work. I’d like each of my kids to have their own space where they upload class content and harness the connective powers of the Internet to move the discourse beyond the limitations of our classroom’s four walls.

I get this. I, too, am the only teacher at my high school currently using blogs with my classes. This is unsettling because I miss the usual level of collaboration with my colleagues. My principal and department head are very open to using technology and new forms of expression, as long as students’ privacy is respected and everyone is kept safe. That’s great.

Some have been less enthusiastic about teachers setting up websites and blogs. I can understand their concern on one point — teachers are already incredibly overworked, and once a few teachers start setting up these types of class structures, the pressure on other teachers to create online classroom spaces might be unrealistic.

But … the truth is I’ve found that my class website is beginning to save me almost as much time as it takes. A student loses an assignment? They go to the class site to get it, and I don’t have to send home extras or have them on hand to distribute. Someone misses a class? They can download any presentations that were shared.

Without having had a classroom to claim as “mine” yet, I haven’t been putting up posters, displaying student work, and just creating that physical space that makes a class thrive. My website has provided that for me, and students have loved it. It’s taken some time and energy, but not any more than that given by my colleagues in creating their physical classroom environment.

Like Mr. B-G, I am wondering if a wiki could be a new extension of my virtual classroom, allowing more 2.0 functionality.

Jeff Utecht has given me another, related set of questions to think about when it comes to evaluating how technology – in this case blogging – is being used in the classroom:

What if we turned these stages of technology adoption into questions that an evaluator could use during the evaluation process?

1. Is the technology being used “Just because it’s there”?
2. Is the technology allowing the teacher/students to do Old things in Old ways?
3. Is the technology allowing the teacher/students to do Old things in New ways?
4. Is the technology creating new and different learning experiences for the students?

This could be a simple list that any evaluator can use to decipher how the technology is being used in a particular lesson.

I like those questions. I like wondering if I’m using technology to create new and different learning experiences.

And now to revisit those course plans and work towards a practice that achieves new and different learning experiences while working within the bounds of technology access, policy, and student learning goals.

Tonight the issue of online security is foremost on my mind. I want to support my students in being literate online, and I believe this means actually letting them work online. However, there is some nervous reaction to this; some students, parents, and colleagues wonder whether or not it is safe.

Making the wired environment a safe one for teens should always be a priority in any classroom, but I don’t think that keeping students in a bubble is the best way to keep them safe. It’s a bit like driving — even though it’s dangerous when you look at the accident statistics, the accepted solution has been to educate teens in how to drive safely. Preventing teens from driving hasn’t really been an option. So with online work in the classroom. Educating them on protecting identity, citing reliable sources, and avoiding all cyberbullying gives them tools to thrive and survive in their future.

We fail our kids with denied access. Let’s cruise the information highway safely … using traffic signals and safety belts.