The Digital English Classroom

Classroom 2.0 presented a variety of interesting ideas on how to implement 2.0 tools in the classroom.  I was very intrigued by a few teachers who were discussing the idea of using cell phones in their classrooms.  Although the logistics were not completed yet, I thought about how much we struggle on a day to day (period to period) basis trying to get our students to stop using their cell phones in the classroom (texting is an epidemic).  Can they be used as a learning tool?

I appreciated the idea of having a social networking page such as this for all areas of teaching, not just 2.0 tools.  For example, as an English teacher I spend hours doing searches on writing, literature, and vocabulary ideas.  It would be nice to find a social networking page that has teachers present their ideas (again, not just 2.0 ideas).

Ning in Education seemed to be a bit disappointing for me.  I guess I wanted more from the website (longer posts, topics that apply to my subject, creative discussions on pedagogy, etc).  I did come across a post by an English teacher who wanted to know how to get his students to better appreciate literature.  I thought the response to the post was insightful and interesting.  I would have joined the discussion but it took place in February and wasn’t sure if people would see it and/or respond to it. 

Maybe I just need to investigate the site some more to fully realize its potential.

In David Warlick’s post Where’s the Line? from his blog entitled 2 cents worth, he talks about how it is getting harder and harder to prevent students from cheating given the technology today.  He gives the example of the student who wrote a partial article for Wikipedia and waited for editors to add to it before printing it out and turning it in as his own.  Secondly, he talks about students outsourcing their college coursework to other countries from minor assignments to final projects for small fees.  Most of this happens and is very hard to detect, if at all.  This is interesting and all so true on the high school front as well. 

I think back to how in high school I felt so lucky and rebellious getting a hold of a coveted copy of Cliffnotes (the paper version—we didn’t have Internet then).  As far as technology making it easier to cheat, I remember the closest I came to it in college occurred when I saved a research paper on a neighbor’s computer, and she printed off her own copy and handed it in as her own.

The web can be a scary and frustrating place for a teacher.  Trying to catch students cheating can be a Mission Impossible scenario unless they copy and paste something word for word from the Internet, which they sure don’t anymore.  You can tell without a doubt a student didn’t write his paper but you couldn’t keep spending hours (I have done this) doing Google searches on various paragraphs and sentence variations.  You just have to hope that some of them are still learning something and move on.

This tool is incredible!  I had so much fun creating my own Pageflakes’ page that I even created one for my husband.  Usually, both of us spend the first fifteen minutes of our mornings perusing our favorite Internet sites (local news, sports’ scores, weather, etc.).  Now, all we have to do is click on our Pageflakes’ page, and most of our links are in one convenient location.  I like the fact that you can add multiple pages.  You can create personal pages for the whole family and work related pages.  For example, I am creating a page that has word and quotes of the day, literary sites, poem of the day sites, etc.  It is all so exciting and very easy! 

I would love to use this in the classroom, but I am wondering if people can only view it privately or if there is a public view function.  Students could benefit from having a page with useful links on it (word of the day, on-line dictionary, writing help sites, daily assignments, etc.)