Creating Life

So many of the writing assignments that are assigned and completed at most schools are a one-way, or maximum two-way communication between the student and the teacher. The communication ends there, and it often ends in a crumpled ball tucked in between the sides of a locker and a math textbook. I've felt driven lately to give those assignments new life. I caught about 10 minutes of a lecture given by Tim Fish at the AIMS Conference on students in the Web 2.0 world. Most of it wasn't new information, but he showed this really neat personal narrative that had been brought to life through image, song and spoken word. "Wait just a second!" I thought. "Our fifth graders write personal narratives, too." Needless to say, the idea has germinated in my classroom. Fifth graders are just now drawing, downloading and capturing photographic images that somehow tell their story. We're using Voicethread to create these stories, and they'll narrate them last. I have to say, they are ALL ABOUT this activity. The public nature of voicethread appeals to their massive adolescent, post Myspace Reality TV egos. There are more ways to extend and expand written communication, whose day as a standalone activity are nearing extinction.

Digital Immigrants Making Friends

The entire process of making friends online is certainly different than than the one we used in gradeschool. Today, I met Alex Ragone in person. He's someone I have chatted with on email, in some forums, and I invited him to speak at the AIMS Conference today. I'm on the Academic Advisory committee for AIMS and my job is to select the technology sessions for the conference. I was impressed with what Alex was doing with Skype and asked him to present. He talked a little bit about how building relationships online is necessarily incremental.

I mean, you usually start interacting in text and then move on to audio and maybe photos, but video is last. That enthralls me. Think about it. Text is impersonal and private. Reading is a private activity. Seeing a photo of someone allows you to connect to that person on a visual level and that makes the relationship more intimate (keep your heads out of the gutters, please). Hearing that person's voice starts to shift the relationship even further and then once you see that person in video, you no longer have as many illusions about the person. Your imagination (your private sphere) no longer plays a role in developing that person's personality--it's just reality. Thinking about that process today made me see how the very PUBLIC NATURE of communication, of our entire culture these days is directly related to how we developed relationships in the "Gutenberg Galaxy." I wonder if these rules about how a relationship develops apply to the digital natives? I'm thinking not, but maybe....