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I really enjoyed the part of the reading that dealt with collective intelligence this week. To me, this is such an important skill, and I feel like it is very resoundingly discouraged by our school systems today. As the Jenkins article points out, schools place a heavy emphasis on each student proving that his or her work is their own and not someone else's. Since this whole idea of collaborative, community-based learning experiences is one heavily perpetuated by the U, it is something that I have thought about a lot. I wonder how we can motivate kids to participate in their groups, how we can prevent social loafing, etc. As the Jenkins article points out, kids seem perfectly able to work in collaborative "knowledge communities" when they are engaging with pop culture (i.e. video games), but they seem very eager to push work onto someone else when that work is for school. It would be interesting to see what would happen if we allowed kids to form their own knowledge communities, and if we then used those communities to teach essential skills such as critical thinking and problem-solving. I think that part of the problem, as a teacher, is knowing just what the kids will get excited about. For me, it seems strange that kids would get completely involved in Japanese culture, so much so that it would motivate these kids to actually learn the language. Not that there is anything wrong with Japanese culture, but it just doesn't jump out as a topic that would be consumingly interesting to teenagers. I'm so curious about how to make my classroom a knowledge community! I am thinking of attempting such a thing in my student teaching. One of the novels I have to teach is very centered around storytelling, and so I am thinking of using a wiki to create our own sort of "story corps".
I am hoping that the students will get really excited about maintaining the wiki and writing the stories. I don't know yet if this is technologically feasible at Como Park, but we shall see.
Also, in case you need some inspiration, here's a little slam poetry: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RxsOVK4syxU
Post #8B
15 years ago
2 comments:
Hey Emily,
Your idea about a "story" wiki sounds great! I think there's so much potential there... everyone has a story to tell, and even if they think they don't, listening to other people's stories is a great way to get them thinking and reminded of their own. I definitely hear you about the logistical concerns-- especially making sure that there's access to computers, that's kind of a major deal. But I bet you'll figure it out and that it'll be a huge success and that your teacher will think it's so cool that she'll keep doing it next year after you're gone. :) Good luck!
Emily-- Your post is really interesting. I like the perspective you have put into collective intelligence and your ideas. What was really odd was that I came from Joe's blog, and he talks about this as well, from the total opposite viewpoint. I wonder if you feel similarily on some things to him or not. Maybe we'll talk about it in class. Either way, it really is amazing how we are able to connect to such a wide range of possibilities, information and people through the internet and how we can bring that to our students so easily...I remember when schools were so excited to get their first computer lab. Oh, good times.
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