YouTube, Improper Use in Middle School

Teaching 6th and 7th graders proper internet usage is of course one of my top priorities as a technology educator yet I find myself still pondering wether my school should allow students access to Youtube. Currently e have access and it is one of the many reasons I took this particular position. Open technology, Yeah!


Recently we have implemented a new eportfolio system at my school district called Mahara. With it comes the ability to download videos and post comments on a wall similar to facebook. A dream come true, yet as I have used it to grade projects in the past few months, I am absolutely appalled at some of the content students are williing to put on their school eportfolio profiles. Do they not hear us? Do they not care? It has gotten to the point where my school is strongly considering removing youtube access. We teach young adults and they make their own choices, after we teach them proper internet usage, how can we help them make the proper decisions about proper content? How do we get our student to see that we teach proper content for a reason and thay thier choices will have the negative side effect of having filters put in place?

The Internet Encourages Creativity in Students

I have been amazed at the amount of work I have seen produced from students in grades k-12 when they are taught and allowed access to the internet and all of it's wonderful tools. Many of us have read about the amazing accomplishments of the flat classroom project. On a smaller scale, I recently inquired about a book report a student was doing and even I being an avid technology user, expected to see a word document ready for editing. Instead I was shown a website. A website, I was thrilled. You can check out the unedited portion here. Graphics used well, even a clip about the book and decent content. When I prompted the student as to why they chose to create a website for their book report, the student replied, "the teacher said to be creative, the internet allows me to be very creative, besides building web pages is fun". In checking the website builder weebly , I find that it is a free web building tool with blogging ability and a great text editor. I think I see another post coming....

I just had to share, whether we realize it or not, are students are indeed technology focused and when given choice and an open internet, the possibilities are endless.

The Internet = Creativity

Creativity = The Internet

Voki - A talking Avatar

Now I may be being repetitive here as I'm sure there are many 2.0 users that are already aware of this application, but I just had to take a minute to tell you how cool I think it is. While searching edublog on an unrelated topic, I ran into the following post Adding a Voki Speaking Avatar . Now this is a neat toy and widget, I created mine quickly and easily with lots of options, I didn't have my handy dandy skype head phones so I just used one of the prerecorded voices and typed in what I wanted it to say. Now that is impressive. I can see so many uses for this. I already like mine and can not wait to have more time to customize it and add my own voice. Adding the code for the widget was easy and they give you three different sizes to choose from. Now think of all the fun I'm having. Can you imagine how much fun our students would have at all different age ranges and abilities. An avatar that you create that can talk using your voice or what you type in at the keyboard. If you have ever seen a students/childs laptop, the first thing you may notice is how customized it is just for them. I can see students adding this to websites, presentations, their wonderful my space account the works, they can even email it to friend. I see a lot of potential and am trying to find time to see if I can do a podcast with my avatar from voki. If you have a minute, drop a comment and take some time to play :)

Connecting With Students

As I write this post I am working from home, and enjoy it most days. So what did I do before this? I was a substitute teacher for years. I enjoyed it so much that I will have my MOE soon and hopefully my own class. Well lately, I've been pondering if I was truly meant to be an educator, let's just say I'm at a cross road with only three classes to go. Well a couple of days ago, I ran into a student I had the pleasure of teaching for three months last year during a long term sub assignment. I'm pretty sure we would have all labeled him a trouble maker, fighting, other things not to be named...., constantly suspended etc... He ran up to me while he was with all his cool buds and about knocked me over with a hug. As I explain that I am not teaching or subbing right now, he gets angry with me. He say's "Mrs. H the students need you. You care, I needed you and I knew you cared, heck you even got me to do homework and I don't do homework. You took the time to get to know us and that is something we don't feel often, you talked about yourself and related to us, besides you are a total goof ball and totally cool, you made learning fun. Now go back to teaching would ya?" I was literally shocked he was so passionate in what he was saying.

Just when I was starting to think I shared too much of myself with students and that I needed to step back if I were to ever do this full time which is my every intention. I have been hurt just as a substitute teacher because I put my heart and soul into the kids which by the way, isn't always politically correct. I decide that this is who I am. Connecting with your students is what it is all about!

Thank you my wonderful student for reminding me that today's educators need to try to learn about our students, talk to our students, not just talk at them. That showing we are real people with real lives, and real emotions is not only OK with them, it is what they need sometimes. They need to see we are not perfect, we make mistakes. I will continue to be me, I will relate, I will be silly, I will tease on occasion, I will be real, and hopefully somewhere along the lines they will learn about technology too :) For an interesting read, check out "What Teenagers Want" by Anne Bromley.