Kite Runner Blog--Day One

I began the "blog" project with the English teacher yesterday (and didn't have time to blog about it). It quickly became a wiki project.

I had created a plan B--a pbwiki--just in case. First thing in the morning, I was very happy to see that the plan B wouldn't be needed, as the blog had been unblocked. I quickly checked to make sure, and it was unblocked.

I went to the lab first period. I explained the project to the kids--what we were doing, why, and how. That all went relatively well. I was having the students write their responses in Word originally. The idea was that, since the question was multi-part, they would be able to save as they went, just in case.

I walked the students through setting up google accounts using mailinator so that their names were recognizable for the teacher. There were a few bumps, but nothing I didn't expect.

And then, about five minutes after letting the students start, many started complaining that they couldn't post. Upon closer inspection I saw that even though the blog had been unblocked, the students were still blocked from posting comments. It was not something I had even considered.

I quickly shifted the plan. In order to have the students have accountability, I had to give them user names, and therefore passwords, for the wiki. I didn't do this in the best possible way. I had the kids come up one at a time to pick them.

By the end of class, all of the students had user names, but no time to sign in and post. School was canceled today, so the English teacher and I have yet to decide what to do as our next step.

The later classes went much more smoothly. I started the class by having students write down user name/password. I then sent them to the blog to begin working on their answers in Word. It took about five minutes to sign up all of the students. At that point, I stopped class, sent everyone to the wiki, and was able to trouble-shoot specific sign ins as they became issues. Everyone was able to post twice successfully.

I was a little disappointed to be using the wiki. Students were not able to reply directly to one another's comments, so they had to just put another student's name in their comment. However, this did address privacy issues.

My original thought, that students would not see the value, and would therefore do the bare minimum of two comments and not focus on engaging conversation, were right. I think, even had some been inclined to try for better conversation, the peer pressure would have probably prevented them from doing so. However, I am still inclined to think that, with continued exposure, positive feedback, interaction with the teacher, and access to resources, the students could start finding a project like this interesting.