Tech and Teens

In the past week, I've had three interesting conversations with students about how they use technology to connect to a larger community, socialize, or publish their writing.

Vignette #1--Using Technology to be Part of a Larger Community: I asked one of my advisees, whom I'll call Nezam, if she had read the excellent Dave Eggers book Zeitoun. Her eyes lit up and she said that she'd just read a rave review of it on an Arabic culture site that she reads frequently. I was fascinated to get this peek into Nezam's world. She told me that "all Muslim kids" read it. I've been checking in on it every now and then. It's a healthy mix of news about Turkish soap operas, editorials about the threat of Koran-burning in Florida, foreign affairs, and (maybe not so healthily) why Lindsey Lohan is headed back to jail.

Vignette #2--Socializing: Today in advisory, some of my seniors got onto the subject of Facebook. They were complaining about a classmate's postings. This classmate moved out of the school district four years ago and now lives in the midwest. It struck me as bizarre that they were all "friends" with her on Facebook if they seemed so frustrated by her postings.

"Are you friends with EVERYONE on Facebook?" I asked.

"Oh no, only people I know," answered one student.

Just to clarify, I asked, "but you're not friends with everyone you know, are you?"

"Well, pretty much, yeah. Facebook Friends. But not friends."

"So you're Friends but not friends."

"Yeah."

My high schoolers have their entire school in a web community. I can't imagine that this is good. When I consider my pre-email high school days, I think how lucky I was to be able to go home and fully leave the dynamics of my high school. Today's students, at least those who are equipped with computers at home, can not get away from their classmates or the popularity races or the insidious bullying...ever.

Vignette #3--Using the Internet to Publish: A student asked me for clarification in the hall the other day about the logistics of a compound sentence assignment. I described it to her and she sighed, "I can't believe I have to write compound sentences. I have stories and poems online with over 40,000 reader hits and I'm working on compound sentences for English class?!" I asked her for the link and was surprised to see that she just posted chapter 11 of a novel that she's writing! Who knew? The website was complete with her face and profile. I can only imagine how authentic and empowering it must be to write for such an audience. I guess I'd be annoyed if I were her and had to write compound sentences, too...

I'm curious about what other people are noticing/overhearing/discussing. How are students using the internet in your worlds?

Techier, as in, More Techy

Our school is changing from First Class over to Google and we have been using our professional development time on Wednesdays to take baby steps in recreating our websites on Google. I had a rare moment this afternoon of feeling more technologically savvy than I normally do.

When the art teacher exclaimed, "The icon for 'new page' keeps going away!" I knew enough to tell him to just get out of edit and click save. He smiled self-deprecatingly.

I was seated next to a senior member of our department who is often driven to profane language when dealing with computers. I was able to walk her through a couple of little steps...and calm her down from time to time.

This class has introduced me to a lot of new tech skills--and fast. I have mostly felt overwhelmed and inept, but my experience today was definitely confidence instilling. I had this new intuition about how to navigate the website page. Last week's hyperlink assignment definitely helped my ease with linking my main page to specific class pages.

I also found myself getting kind of excited about working on my new website, and wow, that is new.

Chaotic

Last week was chaotic. It's been a full week since I last blogged, which is lame.
The pinnacle of chaos was Wednesday night, which is Open House. Every year, it's one of those nights when I seriously evaluate my 50 minute commute to work. While all of the other teachers leave the building to go home, eat dinner, see their families, and get gussied up, I stay at school through the afternoon and evening. My classroom gets cold and the flourescent overheads keep turning off automatically while I sit at my desk and grade or plan. I have to stand up and wave my arms around to get the lights to switch back on. I split up the time with little food breaks--a snack at 4, a frozen burrito heated up in the microwave at 5:30. And then finally, the parents begin to wander through the halls like lost cattle and the night picks up.

I actually love Open House night. I love guessing which parents' faces match those of my students. The parents often even sit in the same seats where their students sit! Uncanny. And I like the opportunity to share what is going on in their daughters' and sons' classrooms.

Then, it's 8:30 and I remember that it's late, I have a long ride home, and I will be back on the road driving the other way at 6:20 the next morning. This year, a colleague and I walked out of the building just as a cloud zoomed across the sky to reveal a bright moon. It was quite an occult moment.

Open House night means that I don't see my son for almost 48 hours--from bedtime on Tuesday night until late afternoon on Thursday. (I leave the house before he gets up in the morning.) This creates all kinds of logistical gymnastics with my husband, the grandmas, and his daycare provider. And more importantly, I just miss my boy. I did peek in on him while he was sleeping when I got home from Open House. He was sprawled out in his crib in the style that Don Draper (any Mad Men fans out there?) recently described as "sleeping like a skydiver."

Well, thank goodness for crisp, cloudless September Saturdays spent close to home.

PS: I am aware that this blog no longer really fits my original description. I think I'd rather change my description than change my blog postings. I'll get on that.

Some blogs I like

Greetings--

At this moment, I am experiencing a special kind of torture that any parent understands: my son is screaming in his crib and there is nothing that I can do about it. He has a cold, and because of this, he is unable to suck his thumb. His thumb is his number one comfort object and he even sleeps with his thumb in his mouth. My husband and I just had a serious conversation about whether a turkey baster would help open up his nostrils or not.

Well, this conundrum reminds me of my go-to place for parenting issues: http://parents.berkeley.edu/ It's not a blog, exactly. I guess you'd call it an email forum. Parents write in with questions and other parents respond with honest and often completely contradicting pieces of advice. I've used it to answer many, many queries that I've had over the last 17 months. Realizing that I'm not the only one who is facing these parenting pickles has always made me feel better.

(Berkeley Parents Network didn't pull through for me tonight, though, but maybe it's because I just didn't know what to write in the "search" box. I tried things like "runny nose thumb sucker" and it wasn't pulling much of anything up.)

In thinking about other blogs that I frequently visit, I've realized that I should read more blogs than I do. I'd like to read an intelligent, editorial-style blog about world news and politics. I'm sure that there are plenty out there, but I haven't found them. I am often irritated by the blogs that are linked or included in the nytimes.com, where I usually get my news, because the writing is not as good. Do any readers have recommendations for such a blog?

Another blog I like is "A Year of Slow Cooking" about, yes, recipes for the slow cooker. http://crockpot365.blogspot.com/ It's unfortunate that Solomon pulled the slow cooker off the counter by the electrical cord and the bowl part of the cooker broke into many tiny pieces, but I think I'll invest in a new one. (Side note: there's this motif emerging in my blog of my son pulling things off of high places by their tails. How sophisticated!!) I am intrigued about this baked oatmeal recipe: http://crockpot365.blogspot.com/2008/11/crockpot-baked-oatmeal-recipe.html

I don't want to jinx it, but Solomon seems to be asleep. Sssshhhhh...

Goodnight.

Response to Digital Nation

I just watched the excerpt from "Digital Nation." I liked that it provided both some doomsday predictions and some positive ones. I surprised myself by buying into the positive more than the negative. The man who spoke right at the end--the USC professor whose name I missed--had a refreshing view that we are evolving, that we are surviving this, and that we might as well embrace the multimedia world.

As for the negative--maybe I'm really off about this, but I have a hard time believing that the typical student ever "thought in essays." I certainly thought in paragraphs through high school and into college. I remember it being the constant refrain of my teachers: "nice paragraphs, but what do they have to do with each other?" It was definitely an issue of concentration for me, but the internet was not to blame. I was barely aware of its primitive existence back then.

It does sadden me to see a room full of students who, instead of whooping with joy when the 2:12 bell rings on Friday, walk out of the classroom silently, heads bowed, iPhones being pulled out of pockets. My students in Brooklyn, NY couldn't afford all of these electronic gadgets, and they were far more social and demonstrative. I think I'm more concerned about the effect of technology on social relationships than I am on academics.

And now for the Cons

So, yesterday, I posted the pros for using a blog with my students. Today, I'll dwell on the negative. I know, I know, it's a bad habit.

CONS:
-potentially, writing on the blog could become a perfunctory, odious task--just like many other kinds of homework for my students.
-I teach three sections of English 10. Would I need three different blogs, or would there be an elegant way to get all 55 of them writing on one site? It seems like it could get chaotic. It also seems like it would make it harder for them to think of original things to say.
-Of course, there is the issue of some students not having internet at home.

It seems that my pros outweigh my cons. I think I feel a survey coming on. I'd like to ask my students if they've ever used blogs in other classes, and whether they found them to be helpful/effective.

Pros of the Classroom Blog

The only time when I've blogged has been on the Writing Project's summer institute blog. We were routinely charged with detailing the ups and downs and funny moments of the day on the course's blog. The blog was also a place where logistics and general housekeeping were shared.

I can picture a blog that accomplishes the same thing for my students. I think I'd like to make a list of the pros and cons of a classroom blog. Today, I'll focus on the pros!

PROS
-in the best possible scenario, the students take blog responses more seriously because it is not just being viewed by the student's teacher; it is being viewed by his/her peers.
-it is a paperless way to communicate and pass in homework.
-it helps to cut down on the issues created by absenteeism. Students who were not in class should be able to get much of the information that they need by looking at the blog.
-it creates a community of writers

That's all for this evening. More to follow!