The first day of class is always fun for me. I get to meet a new group of students with the potential to do awesome work. I get to start over again with my syllabus, my pedagogy, or any aspect of my teaching that I want to start over with. Students don’t always feel the same. Instructors force them to stand up and introduce themselves and provide some fact about themselves that they really don’t want their classmates to know. I always make sure that I introduce myself as honestly as possible. I let my students know that I’m a student too–it forms a bond between us and helps us to connect on a new level. I also tell them about the research that I’m working on and how I’ll implement this into their class. They get excited about the chance to be part of the research that I’m doing.

But one thing I have never done with my students is give them the link to my blog. I don’t require students to read my blog and I don’t usually talk about it in class. But this semester has been different. I’ve talked a lot about my blog, other blogs I’m reading, blogs my students might be interested in and I’ve talked about the blogs they do (and don’t) read. Through this, I’ve learned something interesting.

I gave my students an extra credit assignment. It was only worth one extra point on the midterm and I haven’t had a lot of response (though I have quite a few students who are still looking for the extra credit). The extra credit asked them to interact with Diigo and find the extra credit. This consisted of finding my blog, reading the latest post and adding a comment providing me feedback on what they thought about the post. When I mentioned this to my students, I had just posted the pikiwiki post. I wasn’t expecting anything “phenomenal” from my students. But, as usual, they surprise me.

I had one student who not only commented on the post, but made an excellent point about why I should implement this into our syllabus this semester. The other student, well, she didn’t follow the directions and post a comment, but I gave her the extra credit anyway. Why? She created her own pikiwiki and sent it to me. How can I not give credit for that? The fact that she took the extra step and played with the technology demonstrates that my students are willing to play with the technology without being required to do so. I had planned to postpone pikiwiki until next semester so that I had more time to play around with it, but I think they’ve persuaded me to use it this semester. But they’ve also persuaded me to do something else.

Next semester, I’m going to give students the link to my pedagogy blog. I think it’s good for students to see their teachers writing as much (if not more) than they are required to. But I also think that this might provide a new means of dialoging with my students about what will “work” in their class. I’m contemplating this because I just finished reading an interesting post on Educational Discourse. In her latest post, Kelly talks about “Losing That Tech-Edge Feeling” and he makes two very interesting points in this post that I want to address here.

First, Kelly talks about using technology less in the classroom so that it doesn’t overshadow the student-teacher connection. He writes:

As I work with the teachers in my building, looking for ways to involve students, I’m wondering if the time being put into technology wouldn’t be better used working WITH THE STUDENTS.

I think this is a valid point. We cannot let technology overshadow our own interaction with the students. We need to keep the focus on engaging our students in their learning, not on just finding new ways to use technology in the classroom. If we aren’t using the technology to engage students, then why are we considering this technology in our classroom? He got me thinking here. I taught my students to use Survey Monkey last Thursday. It wasn’t a planned technology workshop, but came up somewhat out of the blue. As we were working on their argumentative essays, one of the students asked if she could use a survey in class. I agreed and recommended the site. Then, after recommending the site to another student, I rethought the approach. I asked the entire class if they would be interested in incorporation a survey and they were wild about the idea. So, right there in class, I taught them how to use it. They loved the idea and are returning to class tomorrow with their final surveys and we’ll discuss who (outside of the class) they might want to send it too.

I did a similar thing on Tuesday, also without thinking about it. I had only one student show up with the required materials for the class. I’ll admit that I was upset; I had gone to the trouble to put the daily lesson plans on the Blackboard calendar and tell the students where to find it. They forgot. I understand that. So, instead of getting angry and lecturing them about responsibility, I pulled out my techno-teacher best. I gave a “pop” quiz (I use that term loosely) in which I instructed students on how to put the calendar on their Blackboard homepage. When they had completed it gave them credit for the quiz. They all showed up this afternoon with all the materials they needed for class. I felt gratified–they did not do this because I screamed at them on Tuesday, but because I gave them the resources to be prepared for class.

I think that what Kelly is saying about working with the students is right on target, but I want to add a twist to this. I don’t think we can stop keeping up with the latest trends in technology, but I do agree that they don’t need to overshadow what we’re doing in the classroom. If I had not learned to use these tools, I would not have been prepared to teach them when my students needed or wanted to use them.

This brings me to Kelly’s second point.

Never mind that the students are texting each other and that they like the technology. Even with all that, there is still a piece that is missing – the human contact. Someone who will listen to them, right next to them. Someone who is in the building that they know really cares whether they are successful or stumbling and helps to provide the means necessary for the them to pick themselves up. Yeah, I know all about embedding technology in the learning and capturing the students but it just seems to be missing something. Once the “Wow” factor is over, what do you have?

Again, Kelly is right. We need to make sure that students are still getting the human interaction they need. But I think that for a teacher who is not ready to give up the technology fight, this human contact can be combined with the use of technology. I think that I’m going to structure it this way.

• At the beginning of the semester, I’m going to start by introducing them to RSS feeds. These are helpful for students doing research or planning to follow a specific blog or page for the course of the semester. I want to see if there’s a way to link an RSS feed to Blackboard to put this in a central location for them, but I need to look into that further before I make promises.
• I’m asking students to subscribe to my blog and read all of the posts that I put into the technology section. I may ask them to read specific posts in other areas too, but I want them at least reading these.
• I’m asking them to post comments to any of the technology posts that they would like to learn to use in class. I’m hoping this will get a discussion started that can be continued in the classroom.
• I’m expanding the roundtable section of my class to include discussions about the comments they left on the blog and ways that we can consider incorporating the technologies in the classroom. As it stands, we use roundtable discussions at the beginning of every class to talk about recent developments in students’ lives (from getting a new puppy to their first fight with their roommate), interesting stories in the news (my students this semester voted in their first primary) to problems they’re having writing their essays (they get great feedback from their peers in these discussions). So, next semester, I’m going to start mentioning posts that I have coming up or posts that they have commented on. I want to use this as a means on listening to what my students want to learn about with their technology opportunities and get them thinking about their own learning.

The plan for the semester is to get students thinking about how technology works in their lives. I think that it’s one thing to tell students that a technology can be advantageous for them to learn. I know that this can be effective–it worked with Diigo and my students this semester. But in the upcoming semesters, I want this to be something that they have more input into. My theory is that if they have the desire to use technology in the class, they are more prone to use the technology later in life. Only time will tell, so check back in the fall to see how this is developing. I’ll keep you posted.