Information Everywhere

Today seemed to be an incredibly busy day. We completed Simcity with another round of teenagers finding about the reality of hitting the credit wall of their community and then actually having to pay all of those massive loans back they have been stacking up for the last few days. Tomorrow they face an intensive debriefing session.

Many kids blogged during the day. The policy I've decided on is that kids are free to post to their blogs, post comments, read others, etc. during their silent reading time (they have about 20 minutes each and every morning to read), they are also free to use their blogs if they have completed their regular work, or at their break. Many of them are choosing to blog during the evenings or during their lunch hour; approximately 10 - 12 posts each night needing approval from me so they can hit the web.

We also talked about subjects from the math unit that we are in the midst of that could be turned into videos and discussed how we could best do that and how they might look. Most of the kids settled on the idea that the videos would work best as tutorials of skills, to actually teach someone how to: convert a fraction to a decimal, to a percentage, etc., rather then tackling a problem solving strategy. Having "math language" to be able to explain a process clearly became a large issue today and the reality of having to do this came home. A sixty - ninety second video that is clear and conherent is going to be tougher then they thought.

Lastly, I handed out my three iPod Shuffles today. I bought them for my classroom at the end of last year using some grant money, and beginning today, three kids are taking them home with a 45 minute radio play from 1945 loaded onto them. I had downloaded a few plays from a site called Yesteryear Radio Vault last year but now the site has disappeared. A short assignment mostly focusing on ideas of creating mood in an aural text such as this is the focus of what I want them to work through with this podcast. The kids were wired to just actually lay their hands on the iPods. Homework suddenly becomes interesting when they need to post on their blogs, listen to an audio file or plan the shooting of a video.

I've also started stockpiling podcasts from MicrobeWorld for use later in the year. Short, 90 second podcasts focusing on a single issue to do with current microbiology, these look invaluable for science class.

They are starting to realize they are swimming in it.  As they work from our classroom, from the computer lab, from home, from friends' houses, they are beginning to realize about the power, and the depth, and the pervasiveness of the information they are surrounded by. I've got kids phoning me at home at night (small town, acceptable practice), emailing me, asking me for URL's, noticing things in videos, and asking about certain podcasts. Its everywhere and it is quickly sinking in for them.