Taking Oppurtunities

I had some unexpected visitors to my room today.

I had no idea why they where there to begin with. I share my room with another teacher, who suddenly showed up with 4 students. They didn't seem to be her students (because she had to ask each of them their names.) At first I thought it was some sort of in school detention (I had to hope my room was not suddenly suitable for in school suspension). But then the students started talking among themselves, which I didn't think the other teacher would have permitted in a detention setting.

I didn't want to embarrass anyone, or provoke anything, so I didn't want to ask the other teacher the obvious question: who are these kids? So I sent her an email. Sure enough she checked it and got back to me quickly. She was supposed to be covering their class, but the room was locked when she got there. Since there were so few of them, and we have enough space, she brought them back. Probably the best decision in the situation.

So, four kids with forty minutes, and nothing to do. There probably is a sub plan, but its locked away in the classroom for now.

So I went to my bag of web 2.0 tricks and thought about what to pick. I wanted to give the kids a tool they might be able to use, and something that would keep them engaged for at least most of the period.

I settled on voki. It is simple to use. It can be used for school or merely entertainment. Its interactive, audio, and visual. In short, perfect for this impromptu lesson.

My pitch, "who wants to see something cool on the computer." Ok, so that could have been better. Two of the four came over. I walked them through it. I asked which character to use, and what clothes, accessories, and background to use. We ended up with a Turkey in a Santa suite with a pilgrim hat in a night club.

At that point I decided the students had had enough instruction. The best way for most of us to learn is by doing, or by showing. I let those two each create their own. I then invited the other two, who were by now laughing at the silly things being said by odd looking talking faces, to make one. Instead of going through my instructions again, I asked one of the first two students to show them how. I think one student out of the four was the most interested in the website. I made sure to have him repeat it to me on the way out, so that he'll have it at his use in the future.

I don't know if I advanced the education of anyone today. But I introduced four students, with nothing to do, to web 2.0. They now at least know they can make talking cartoons. Maybe they will want to add them to a future school project. Maybe they will find a personal use for them. Maybe they will wonder what else they can do so easily on the web. Or maybe, hopefully, they will realize that a lot of these "web tools" are really easy to use if you take two minutes to try them out.