So, we should BLOCK the Wikipedia because there are students who are not on task???  Where is the teacher? what are these kids supposed to be doing with their time in the lab? Are they in the lab because there was not another engaging and relevant activity for them to be completing???

Excuse me…..the Wikipedia must be used with caution and with understanding of what it IS and what it ISN’T.  But it ISN’T a game for kids to be “playing” when they are supposed to be doing something else.

This is NOT an issue of the merits of the Wikipedia! This is a classroom management issue.

If we educators want to blog, shouldn’t we be setting good examples for our students who are too often blogging inappropriately and posting inappropriate photos and comments on their myspace pages?  Perhaps the teachers who are blogging and being overly critical publically of their districts, their students, their administrators feel protected because of their strong teacher union.  But haven’t we  heard stories about potential employees not being hired because the employer checked the blog or myspace account and didn’t like what they saw?  So shouldn’t we be modeling for our students what is and isn’t appropriate to publish in the “blogosphere?”

I am a strong proponent of blogging and have advocated for it in the district. It’s a way to get kids to write, to reflect, and to have a wider audience for their writing. It encourages reading, writing and reflection.  It can be a very constructive process.  It can also be destructive when it’s used to discredit others.  There’s been a lot of attention lately about how middle school girls use their myspace accounts to form cliques, turn girls against each other, and generally, be devisive.

No, our schools are not perfect and teachers have the right to voice their concerns.  But when the concerns are broadcast all over the world, without the history and the perspective that one needs to understand a situation fully, perhaps tempering those comments is a good idea.

 Am I just a Pollyanna or a scaredy cat?

Duke University was brilliant when they gave all incoming freshman iPods last year.  The iPods were pre-loaded with everything from information about orientation to the campus fight song.  Kids could walk around campus plugged into their iPod while they had a campus tour or found out about registration and more.

Many professors are on the podcasting bandwagon.  Providing lectures or review notes through podcasts allows kids to be tuned in, not tuned out.  Students can plug in to their iPods in the dorm room, block out the other noise, and listen to a class they missed or listen to one they attended, but for deeper understanding.

I was poking around the iTunes site the other night, searching for educational podcasts.  I found that an introductory Art History course at the Rhode Island School of Design was available as a podcast.  Now, with the ability to create “enhanced” podcasts, the professor can not only include the lecture about each painting or sculpture discussed, but include an image of it as well (copyright issues??)  Now, if my daughter were enrolled in that class, how would I feel?  Would I want her to subscribe to the podcast and skip the class?  Naturally, there’s much to be gained by attending the class:  the camaraderie with classmates, the ability to ask questions, and more.  But if a student can learn all of the content required of that class through the podcast and still “ace” the test, should they be penalized?  Maybe some students would much rather be in the studio CREATING art, rather than sitting in a lecture hall.  If they could plug into their iPod and listen to the lecture while creating their own masterpiece, isn’t that OK? That’s recognizing that all students don’t learn in the same way.

And, don’t we teach our kids to use technology to be successful?

“I am going to spend the next two weeks whiting the pages in our textbooks out that call it a planet,” Rick Blas, a science teacher at Fort Collins High School, jokingly said.

“But seriously, this is great–it makes for good classroom discussion and gets kids thinking about what a dynamic universe we are living in, and it gets them thinking about science.”

On Thursday, the world’s astronomers who make up the International Astronomical Union stripped puny Pluto of the planetary status it has held since 1930, claiming it doesn’t fit the new definition of a planet the organization adopted this week.

The first thing that occured to me when I read this was……Another reason to credit the Wikipedia as an alternative to the traditional encyclopedias that most of us have relied on in the past. Since I have a little thing going with one of our high school librarians about the merits of the wikipedia, I wrote to her and said,

I haven’t checked, but I’ll bet my last dollar that Pluto’s “new status” is reflected in Wikipedia.

Sure enough, she wrote back after checking it out from home and said,

Yes, I checked the wikipedia on the “dwarf” planet, and… you’re right. Up to date - and the consumer update function is blocked because of vandalism. It’s a sad world we live in. I concede the immediacy………

The worst part of this little story is……I couldn’t even check it at work if I tried. The Wikipedia had been blocked, and not even a block that I can override with my administrative password. We had to contact our local service provider to have it unblocked.

Hmmmmmmm……………………….

If we are concerned about the way our youth is using this type of social networking technology, then what better way to teach them than to model for them.

I like that.  And the site comes with a 40-page curriculum for teachers.

Oy vey. This technology stuff can be daunting.

By the very end of the day, Bloglines emails started coming in. By then I had told them that they could leave early, so I let them go anyway.

What could I have done to make the day go better?  I should have been prepared with another activity, but having just returned from a long vacation, I am doing stuff pretty last minute.  What a lesson I learned!

As the boy scouts say, “Be Prepared.”  Next time I will.