Foot- Extra Credit

I have learned so much about how to make my classroom more multi-modal. I think that this is really important because our students are becoming more and more immersed into a technological world. We need to do our best to include that into school so that what they learn can relate more to their lives. I loved the idea of the multi-genre autobiography. Before doing this project, I never thought that the texts that I grew up with really could be considered an autobiography. I see this now. Doing the project, I saw how each of the texts I talked about influenced my life. I think this is something that our future students need to see as well. They also need to understand that literacy is not just about reading books but reading all kinds of texts. I think that this project does this. I think that it would be a great way to start a class. Not only does it help the students get to know each other and their similarities and differences, but it will also teach them the things I have mentioned above.

One thing that I now want to do in my classroom because of this class is integrate social networking into lessons and the class in general. I never would have thought that this was possible. Looking at blogs and nings in class has opened my eyes to a whole new community and the possibility of bringing that community to the classroom. I think that getting students online is such a good idea because it is teaching them literacy in a Web 2.0 world. They need to know how to communicate online and the consequences of doing so. In my classroom, I want to have the students' finished work posted online. I think this is important because they can share their writings and projects with more than just the class. I could set up a class wiki or Google site, and students could put reading and writing portfolios on it. Dr. Kist talks about this on page 65 of his book The Socially Networked Classroom. One other smaller thing that I want to do in my classroom with social networking is have a Facebook page for the class. I would use this for reminding students about tests and projects that are due. It could also be a place were they could post questions to each other about class assignments. This way I could see their questions, and if they couldn't answer them among themselves, I could.

Before this class, I would have never thought about using social networking to such extents in my classroom. Although I am excited to implement these things, there are many challenges as well as benefits to using them. Some of the benefits I have already talked about. Students need to be literate in a technological world. Using social networking can help them with this. They can see what it is like to put their work out there and have others who they might not even know respond to them. It can also get students more interested in class projects because they will be using the technology that they use outside of class as it is. Although these are really good reasons to use technology in the classroom, there are many things that could hinder this. The most obvious to me is the schools themselves. In my school, I couldn't even get on Youtube. Some school are slowly getting away from anti-technology views, but some have a long way to go. Dr. Kist's book takes this into consideration, as it is divided up into sections based levels of technological access in schools. Another challenge is student safety. Along with the positive aspects of being out on the web with others, also comes the realization that not all of the people using the internet are nice and safe. Students' safety need to be a major concern. Teachers should fully research and be aware of safety issues. Because of the safety issue, parents will be another challenge. Teachers should be fully aware of parents' wishes concerning social networking and keep them in the loop at all times.

These are just a few of the things that this class has got me thinking about. There are so many ways to implement technology into the classroom. I think it is such an important thing to do. There is no escaping the prevalence of technology, so we might as well embrace it.