In the Wild « Web2.0 in High School
Observations from the beginning of a high school project with Ning, Animoto, and Flickr. Most of the insight is around how Ning facilitates conversations between students and lets the teacher join the discussion. Students are engaged with Ning; they are personalizing their spaces and giving each other constructive feedback.
The ability for teachers to understand and add value to the comment ‘back channel’ is a key skill for the ‘connected teacher’. Anyone can swap an writing pad for a blog, there is no value in that. The back channel is the conversation, and is the heartbeat of thought.
I can’t think of another way in which teachers can get such immediate access to the ‘thinking’ process that is playing out in front of them.