Meet me where I am - reaching disengaged students

DIGITAL STORYTELLING - this is probably the one area of technology I love, and importantly don't fear. I think it is because for me it most resembles the traditional literacy and storytelling tools. But is also shows me what Mark has been trying to teach us with this unit - the teaching is the same, its just the tools are different. Digital storytelling is still sentence structure, characters, conflict, mood, but we need to meet the students where they are, and that is in digital formats.  This student shows me why -

This is where students are today - technology is woven into them. And if the classroom does not embrace their world, we lose them, we can't reach them, then what can we really teach them if they are disengaged from our classroom. If we, as teachers, can just venture into their world, see what interests them, then use it as a tool to engage them, then we win in a way. It is the simple constructivist approach, taking the lead from the students. Finding out where they are, meet them there, and once you have them you can lead them to other areas that previously may have not been appealing to them. 

As primary school teachers literacy is one of our major concerns and this technology opens up so many exciting formats that should engage students that would otherwise slowly drift away from the arts and humanities. Without making a sweeping generalisation I think this technology can help to keep boys engaged in literacy lessons. My fellow blogger  http://techsavvyteach.blogspot.com/

in her post "boys and blogs" refers to a great article saying how blogs have been used to spark boys interest in English lessons. Its a great article. My experience at an all boys school, with 10 year boys, English and literacy (especially the tedious nature of grammar and spelling) , was always met with groans - they really couldn't care less, and I don't blame them because the content really was a long way from their world. I just think how engaging literacy lesson could be by venturing into this digital world where these boys are most of their free hours. Bring the lessons to them in their world. The lesson really are the same (grammar, spelling, sentence structure) but it is in a world they find interesting.  I don't think it is quite tricking them into learning the same content, more New STAGE, same PLAY.

wikipedia test

Due to my birth position of "digital immigrant" I did doubt the accuracy of wikipedia information. I mean in theory does it really sound as if it can work - an encyclopedia that can be edited by anyone in the world, regardless of education, knowledge or expertise. Compared to the old school encyclopedias complied by expertise in their field, whose entire job is to compile information. I mean it doesn't sound like it should work, that it could possibly compare in accuracy, that is why I was quite surprised when we saw in lectures that there were very few errors between the two pedias (wiki , and britannia).

My thing with internet information is we as teachers need to set students up to analyse and seriously examine the accuracy of the information - as with all information. They really have to be taught to examine it and look for biases and inaccuracies that don't make sense. Many are happy to copy/paste - done. If it is on line it is true.

Here is my case in point, if a student was to believe what this website claims to be true about the haggis
http://haggishunt.scotsman.com/haggisclopedia.cfm
they possibly wouldn't get the best mark.
Wikipedia however did pass the accuracy test. This is taken from the wikipedia page on haggis,
"A frequent tale is that a "Haggis" is a small Scottish animal with one set of legs longer than the other so that it can stand on the steep Scottish Highlands without falling over. According to one poll, 33% of American visitors to Scotland believe haggis to be an animal.^[13]"
Maybe the Americans in this poll have been taken their information from the bogus "haggishunt" website, and not questioned the information found online.

I'm sure teachers in the past had to train students to question newspaper biases and author biases. Maybe we as teachers are failing to provide students with these questions skills required when examining any information. Maybe students need to value their own opinions more, and trust that it is ok to question things, seek alternative views, examine and evaluate them.  So, I stand corrected wikipedia is a good source of information, so are encyclopedias - but we still need to train students there really is no one stop place for the answers.