We’re on our way!

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Phew! I have finally managed to set up my student blogs. I think. I hope.

It’s been like wading through thick fog: I know what I want at the other end but my way through is misty. I wonder how successful I will be in helping my students navigate their way – talk about the blind leading the blind. Luckily, I do have some very tech savvy students in my grade 10 class in particular who are excited to learn new things, so they will be my best allies. I do think it’s good that I learn alongside them as it really is the best way to model lifelong learning skills. I will be able to help with the ideas and they can help with the realisation of them. Team work.

I’m still unsure about where I put links, how they all connect to each other, and a million other things. But hopefully as we move futher along with our projects it will become easier for us all.


Social media / social change

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I’ve had some interesting discussions this week in various places about the power of social media to effect change. It all stemmed from me changing my profile picture in both Twitter and Facebook to a symbol which represents my support of marriage equality which is currently being debated by the Supreme Court in the United States of America. The symbol:

 

 

 

 

represents marriage equality .  There were many people who have also adopted this sign – or a similar one – but the debate again was brought up about whether merely ‘liking’ something, or changing your profile picture represented change.

My argument has always been that I’m not so naïve as to believe that merely changing a picture or liking a page is going to effect real change in the world, but getting a message across to a lot of people can help with it.  Changing my picture does not indicate that this is the only action I have taken or intend to take on matter – marriage equality in this instance – but I believe that if enough people show they support this, then governments and politicians will take note.  It’s interesting how some previous hardliners are moving towards supporting marriage equality, because they are seeing that it makes political sense.

It also brought up the issue of how people often react to others in social media.  People I don’t know feel they have the right to judge me, and make assumptions about my motives and actions, without bothering to get into dialogue about it.  I have no problem with people disagreeing – in fact I always welcome dialogue, but I get cross when people make snap judgments.  And then feel they have the right to post those snap judgements in a public forum.

This issue of being a ‘slacktivist’, as I was called, as opposed to an ‘activist’ is an interesting one, because it brings up the issue of what’s ‘real’.  I believe that the digital world is as real as anything else, and actions which occur in the digital realm can be – and are – as powerful as if I physically protested.  Why do people still think that there is a different between the ‘real world’ and the ‘virtual world’?  Surely, it’s all one and the same these days?

 


A moment of realisation

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I think I’ve just learned a very valuable lesson about blogging: don’t wait until you have time to write the whole blog to start writing down your ideas. I’ve had the belief for a while that a blog needs to be written all in one go – a stream of consciousness as it were. But I’ve come to realise from reading a few that they are often pieces that writer take time over and revise, and edit, and re-work and generally polish. This is a revelation to me, as I have, in the past, always written straight into the blogging site and then pressed ‘post’. I don’t think I’ve ever taken the time to “compose” a piece before.


Lifelong learning

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This is a new venture for me, so I’ll be learning alongside my students with this one – truly demonstrating that we’re all lifelong learners!  I have used a blog before, but because WordPress is blocked in Kazakhstan, I’ve used that as an excuse to discontinue.  The truth is, though, that I do find blogging challenging.  I think of exciting and interesting things to say when I’m about my daily business, or trying to fall asleep at night, but when it comes to writing, I find myself stumped.  I’m sure the students will have the same problems so I’m wondering whether I should always provide writing prompts for them, or whether that would have the counter-effect of them writing to the prompt, rather than writing what they think and feel.  I’m hoping that there will be enough issues raised during the course of the unit to give them (and me) plenty to write about.

I’m finding it a little frustrating that I’ve not had a better response via Twitter regarding other schools to collaborate with.  When I was a school student, I would have found it very exciting to correspond with students in Kazakhstan.  I always had pen pals when I was a kid, although mine were not that exotic: one lived in Milton Keynes and the other in France.  I was living in London at the time.

As we move on, I’m hoping this will be less about me and more about the students.  I can respond to them and to issues that are raised as we go through.  Hopefully they will find it as exciting as me to have a language unit conducted solely through digital media.  It’s hard to tell sometimes with Grade 9 – they can be tiresomely unexcited sometimes!  I hope they prove me wrong and get thoroughly engaged in this.

What I now have to do is investigate how to attach / link this blog to our Wiki and how to put links and images into this blog.


Lesson one reflection

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Well, today was a big day in the online world of Grade 9 at Miras: the start of our completely digital unit.  For the next few weeks we will be exploring and inquiring into the huge topic of ‘rights’, and the impact that social media can have.  We started with a lively discussion from the outset – what are ‘rights’?  Who has them?  Who should have them?  What about animal rights?

From there, it was a big leap for some of the class into the world of digital communication. By the end of the class, I think we successfully got each student set up with Twitter, as a member of our class Wiki, and hopefully on a blog site too.  I think the hardest thing for most of the class will be to keep up with the blogging, but hopefully we can do some work on that and so achieve the two objectives of the unit: (a) to become more aware of and active in global issues; and (b) to examine the role of social media in effecting change.

I, for one, am excited about the possibilities that this unit presents.