I slept in today to recover from the trip and to enjoy my summer vacation (ah the life of a student). I thought I would breeze through a few posts and get on with my day until, I opened my favorite feed reader to discover a post about why we should publish student work. Another great post by Alec Courosa. The post higlighted the work of some amazing elementary students in New York City that have become an online phenomenon.
To say that I was moved by the work of Mr. B and the students of the PS22 choir would be a gross understatement. I remember elementary school music class, it was fun. We learn to play instruments and we sang songs. Now I imagine the PS 22 students who are getting love from all around the world. Imagine the new directions these experiences will take these students.
Over the weekend I wrote up a blog post on a private Ning site I created for members of my social studies cohort. The topic was in response to a tweet by Kevin Jarret about Fliggo. Essentially championing it for them to use as a place to host student work, however I prefaced my post with the idea that fliggo is password protected and somehow that makes it safe. After reading Alec's post, I wondered what am I "protecting" students from? I needed a break.
Listening for the voices of PS22 students in Passion Pit's Manners on my reflective jog around Lake Nokomis I came up with some ideas...how about starting with fliggo and teaching students how to post their creations, and how to make comments etc? In effect, using Fliggo as a scaffold to developing an open environment of posting student work on youtube.
Considering that I am still new to education, I ask you, how will administrators take to the concept of posting student work online? Is a fliggo scaffold an appropriate starting point? Is it better to ask for forgiveness than for permission? What walls will I have to climb?
Post your thoughts.
6 comments:
The issue you may face is maintaining the privacy of the students. Admins are concerned about getting nailed for this. My suggestion would be to let the students post the work - you can facilitate it. I would not post it myself unless you get a release letter to protect you and your admin people.
I suggested to my design students (college) that they should post their portfolio online. Many chose YouTube and Slideshare but others used "industry websites".
You need to talk with Paul Bogush. Check out his Writing for a world wide audience blog post.
When I presented to my district administrative team a year or so ago on the work I was having students publish (written and audio), all I had to do was assure them of student anonymity. Once they saw that my student work really was getting visitors from around the world (via traffic tracking software) and witnessed the quality of work my students were creating, they were open to hearing my reasons for wanting to publish (many of which Bogush covered in his post). By the end of the presentation and short q&a session, I had the blessings of everyone from the vice-principals up through the superintendent.
Sometimes all it takes is one or two concrete examples to show people that publishing student work to the web is not a beacon for intarweb pedophiles. To paraphrase Public Enemy, they need to be shown why not to believe the hype.
One creative way of getting around this issue that other teachers have used is having a companion school write to and read your student's work. You can keep it anonymous but promote the learning about other kids angle.
For examples of schools that have posted online,see http://technologyactivelearning.pbworks.com/
Thanks for the ideas. I absolutely love the "don't believe the hype" angle. I am still a few years out from being in a school, but it's great to hear from you all to be prepared.
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