I’ve been thinking more about using technology tools in the classroom and the advantages of incorporating things into the classroom that really interest students, thereby giving them some kind of “real life” connection to the work they do at school.
Flickr is an example of a really popular technology tool which could serve this purpose. Flickr seems to be one of the most popular technology tools for the young teenage crowd. I read with interest Will Richardson’s explanation of how teachers are using Flickr in their classrooms and the positive reactions they’re receiving. Richardson describes a teacher who has his students go on “photo field trips” in which they search for photos from different parts of the world and write about them. Teachers have also had their students choose a photo from Flickr and write a story about it.
When a teacher gave my 8th grade daughter an assignment using photos she found on the Internet she was really enthusiastic about working on it. Her class was given an assignment to research a topic they were interested in and include photos they found on the internet. Photo storage tools like Flickr are tools which many middle schoolers are already very familiar with and, like with text messaging, it’s one which can help students make that connection between what they are doing outside school, for fun, and the assignments they are given at school.
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2 comments:
Elizabeth, certainly the technology makes it more fun for students, and connects school with their life outside of school (which has to be more meaningful, no?) I think the fact that they were given the freedom to find their own topic is really important to middle schoolers, especially. And what a good venue for teaching about creative commons licensing an assignment like this would be.
It's not the technology that makes this meaningful, as Maryrose mentioned, but technology does provide more opportunities to connect to student's real lives. I think this also ties in with the URL I posted yesterday about what teens say about technology. It's just a part of their lives. They don't think of it as anything separate. So, if it's not separate than it should be a part of everything they do - school, home, fun, etc. What do you think?
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