I saw the new posting for EDU 255 on Facebook. I'm sure there will be a flurry of activity there, although I found myself becoming really bored with FB about seven months ago and took a hiatus.
The EDU 255 Facebook page did help, though. I was reminded to check my grades in Blackboard--which I did. To my dismay, I saw that I was missing a number of assignments. On further investigation, I discovered that I had completed the assignments, but only posted them on my blog, or in the discussion board, and not in Blackboard. I was able to correct some of those missing assignments, but not all--perhaps because of the excessive tardiness of them.
This is good. I have gone from being a Type-A, driven, obsessive compulsive person to a Type-B, laid back, California-style, laissez-faire person. Sometimes, I'm too laid back. But, hey, it's OK. We'll get there. I mean, in the Grand Design of things, I'd rather be the one asleep in the boat than the ones panicking about the storm.
And now, Steve Hargadon, Classroom 2.0
Point 3: It turns out that you are especially dependent on early adopters for the success of the network-
This is a point that was addressed in Richard Buckland’s video. Buckland mentioned that the blog/wiki that he uses in his classrooms are introduced on Day 1. Students know that the wiki is part and parcel of the course they are taking. Participation, in Buckland’s case, is mandatory, since responses to certain items must be posted on the wiki.
The blog and wiki that I’ve created for my classes are still very much in their fledgling states. I did not have the luxury (or desire) of waiting until the beginning of a semester to introduce the blog, and, as a consequence, student buy-in is hit-or-miss. Some love it, some hate it. The blog has been active for just over two weeks; the wiki, which I believe has a better chance of student adoption, will not go live until after spring break (March 18).
Two sub-points that Hargadon made under this item were:
a. If you don't provide an environment where others can function and be seen as leaders, they will go somewhere they can.
b. Web 2.0 is about participation, and one of the brilliant lessons of creating a Web 2.0 network or service is seeing your primary role as being that of encouraging and providing an environment for others to participate and lead. We manage the process instead of trying to manage the outcome (another theme I love).
This is an area where many teachers struggle, I think. It is, for many of us, very scary to allow students to have such powerful participation ability. But, already, I can see that if I do not turn over much of the blogging, posting and discussion to my students, then there will be little incentive for the students to read the blog on a daily basis. One of the reasons that our journalism blog was successful was because every student participated. Students didn’t read to see what I had to say; they read and posted comments based on what their peers had to say. I need to get to that point with my freshmen.
So, I am taking baby steps. I have invited one student from each of my computer classes to be a contributor on the class blog. I chose these students based on certain personality (as opposed to academic) traits. Monday, March 7, will be the first day that any of them will have the ability to post on the blog. I am hoping for success and added interest. I am hoping for real collaboration and discussion on projects that we are doing—from class to class, as well as peer to peer. I’ll have more to report on the subject next week. The point I’m making is that I am trying to go from “managing the outcomes,” to “managing the process,” as Hargadon recommends.
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