Innovative Uses for a Computer Classroom? 350
flard asks: "I will be teaching a Freshman English class at a medium sized public university, in a computer classroom for next semester. Every student has their own machine with an internet connection. I am thinking about using a weblog for them to post their work and critique each other. Do you guys have any other cool ideas on what to do and what NOT to do?" How can the computers best be applied to assist in teaching a non-technical class? Use of a weblog is a start, but are there other pieces of software that can be deployed in such a setting?
Collaberative Review (Score:2, Insightful)
I think something like the system that powers http://www.sciscoop.com/ [sciscoop.com] would be usefull.
Provide a forum for both discussion of instructor posted "articles" as well as a way for students to post their own writting samples, which can be reviewed/critiqued/commented-on by other students, in such a way that the "cream" rises to the top, and is more visible by all students.
Answer: don't (Score:5, Insightful)
I say, leave technology out of English. Time would be better spent teaching the way that it has worked for hundreds of years - without the computer. Sure, computers can aid those with good typing skills in getting a paper done faster, but they far and away are useless in such courses as a teaching aid. If it were an engineering course, I would say differently - the world has changed much through the transition from slide rules to calculators to computers. But leave English out of it.
don't spend too much time on technology (Score:2, Insightful)
In short, be sure you don't lose focus on what's really important to teach during your course.
A word of caution: (Score:5, Insightful)
The Weblogs are a good idea, because it allows the students to critique each others' papers on their at their convenience. And of course the Internet is a great research tool.
However most teachers fall victim to the temptation of using computers too often. Putting today's lesson into Flash may be "cool", but it doesn't help the student learn the material. English is about the written word, not about the latest technology.
Also, if you use the computers on a regular basis, there will always be a few students with poor computer skills or who crash the machine that will demand immediate attention. This iterrupts the flow of the class and cuts into precious class time.
Think twice about trying any of the suggestions here. Because college classes should be about learning first, using technology second (or third, or fourth...)
Re:why not use slashcode ? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:why not use slashcode ? (Score:1, Insightful)
What the fuck is wrong with you? They're english students - they're not going to be coding anything.
Not about computers but, (Score:2, Insightful)
Computers make you write poorly. (Score:3, Insightful)
Check out this article from one of Americas best essayist/poet/fiction write [dircon.co.uk]
I Second This (Score:5, Insightful)
Computers are a tool. In this setting, they'll be a distraction. They're not going to make a very non-technical class like this more interesting. They'll just provide an outlet for disinterested people to keep themselves busy.
Back in my day, we used books and notebooks. When it came time to write a paper (a formal effort, not a weblog), we did use a computer. But that was not during class.
I think you really need to look elsewhere for ways to get students interested and involved. Computers will be a mistake.
Re:Answer: don't (Score:4, Insightful)
OOooh... that might be cool actually.
Toss out the computers! (Score:1, Insightful)
(Not really, thats a ficticious example, but it does happen!)
By the way, don't no english folks go correcting me grammer or spelling... (TIC)
Consider your intended curriculum (Score:4, Insightful)
Imagine teaching a basic math class to second graders and giving them calculators. They'll learn how to use calculators. They won't learn basic arithmetic.
You'll have to look very closely at what you want your students to learn. This might be the ability to spell-check and grammar-check their own writing without being dependent on a word processor. It might be to write regularly. It might be to read available text and review them.
Whatever it is, you will want to make sure the computer is nothing more than a tool - like a pencil. As several others have pointed out, it is very easy to abuse computers in a classroom setting. Access to the Internet is very hard to control completely and IM/IRC are not much more effective than group discussions.
The main benefit of computers might be minimizing paper. Sending the assignments and notes to each computer and having students do their assignments on the computer to send to you could be a great savings in paper.
The answer is Don't (Score:4, Insightful)
Now if there is an additional "writting lab" or something like that that isn't instructional, but hands on (in otherwords the students are expected to be doing something rather than lectured at) that is a great use for a computer lab. Each student can use the time to do what they need to do.
#include
Why not use a forum/bulletin board? (Score:2, Insightful)
Setting up a forum allows you to create different areas, with diferent themes. It could also be interesting that users could pick their own avatars, theme, and you can set static user titles, titles by post count, etc.
phpBB [phpbb.com] is incredibly easy to setup. If you have a running DB (MySQL, PgSQL, whatever), instalation is is a snap. I suggest you take a look at it. Visit their Community Forums for an example.
Other software you could take a peek at:
OpenBB [openbb.com] - another great forum system
Course forum [freshmeat.net] - never tried it, looks good
I've also used InvisionBB, which I don't know the URL offhand.
Anonymous posting/critique (Score:2, Insightful)
The critique portion being anonymous is simple. If someone wants to point out negative aspects of the assignment, they don't have to worry about the other students thinking they are a "teacher's pet" or just being malicious. Once the novelty of posting anonymously wears off, you should start getting some honest feedback. Of course, you'll need some mechanism to prevent responses that don't fit within guidelines set forth at the beginning of the course.
The anonymous nature for the author is, perhaps, not as necessary. It would allow a student who is below the average level of ability to escape being branded as "slow". Some teachers in my past felt that embarassment was a powerful motivating force. I don't think I agree with that. Embarassment is always associated negatively. Why would anyone think a negative emotion would encourage a positive reaction? Maybe that's just me...
You could also throw in a few "fake" anonymous essays along the way. Perhaps they would reinforce or remind the students of topics covered a week or two ago, or possibly introduce a new topic coming in the next couple of classes.
I had a class like this (Score:5, Insightful)
To illustrate the difference between writing for print and writing for the web, one of our projects was to write a research paper and then adapt the content for a website. She taught us the bare basics of HTML, as well as some design styles.
But the main thing she focused on was how we had to adapt the content for the medium. Paragraphs had to be much shorter--preferably not paragraphs at all, but rather a list of bullet points. As a rule of thumb, she told us that we had to cut the length of the information to 25% of the length of the paper. Much less than that and you lose important information; much more and you lose the interest of the audience.
Also, she demanded that the websites be readable in any page order. No fair making users click through the pages in order, because they simply won't do it. So while you can lay out a nice long cohesive argument in a research paper, you can't do that in a website. You have to post your conclusions right on the home page, and then have links to other pages that have supporting material, but in such a way that each page can be read without having read or seen any of the other pages.
Competant communication in online media is a deceptively difficult skill, so if you can teach your students a few simple things like that (and if they actually learn) you will have helped them immensely.
A couple of negatives but at least a suggestion... (Score:5, Insightful)
Tail wagging the dog.. (Score:4, Insightful)
This sounds like 1998 style overenthusiasm for the net.
Think Network Not Computer Re:I had a computer lab (Score:4, Insightful)
And, your Weblog idea falls in the memory space. You are trying to save the written conversations with one or many in a chronological fashion. So, in a way you are trying to create an institutional memory.
You could show your students what a wonderful "institutional memory" Google is. Do searches or exact quotes by remembering just a few words of the quote. By showing how easy it is, you can teach your students to be more precise in their use of references and paraphrasing ideas.
You could also show the students a wealth of english literature on the web that is freely available, You could introduce them to efforts like the Guttenburg project [gutenberg.net] http://www.gutenberg.net/ and let them know that good books don't have to be expensive or out of easy reach locked up in some library somewhere.
You could explain to the students as to how things can be so easily checked for plagiarism, that it is better to give credit where it is due rather than claim it. It might help cultivate a new generation that has no hesitation in acknowledging where the ideas came from - thus, later allowing for a better public discourse in their civic life.
You could show them the power of weblogs in the evolution of ideas, by exposing the various stages of idea development to criticism by peers - seen and unseen. Though a lone author can come up with a great work after being in isolation, I think the probability if a great work is higher if it is exposed to some criticism as the ideas are coalescing in the writers mind. You could also introduce them to literary discussion groups.
You could expose your students to the chunking of ideas in electronic and cyberspace , because ideas have to be expressed in screenfuls, and thus a sort of an unnatural frame is created around the idea. You could also expose them to the different style of organization of chunks of ideas needed when the reader has some element of choice in deciding the sequence. If there is another post on this subject soon, I will try to put more of my thoughts across. I think, as long as you keep you focus correct, and not get caught in the computing aspect, by explore the networking aspect, you can't go wrong. After all, what is writing - it is just a network of words and ideas.
Re:A couple of negatives but at least a suggestion (Score:2, Insightful)
"Cool ideas"? How about focusing our your job? (Score:3, Insightful)
Focus on your job, which is teaching English, grading your students' papers, and discussing the appropriate literature.
J.R.R. Tolkien never had a computer, and he wrote masterpieces. Twain, Dickens, Kipling, Hemingway, Steinbeck, Faulkner, Melville, and Poe didn't have computers; can you imagine how computers would have affected their skills?
J.K. Rowling doesn't even use a word processor; she just writes her Harry Potter masterpieces in long hand on a yellow pad of paper. (That's a bit extreme.)
How many of your students are going to win a Pulitzer Prize or a Nobel Prize in literature? How many of your students will write a book worthy of Oprah's Book Club (TM)?
You should concentrate on that. If you want to be "innovative" in education, make sure you have a set of measurable results that you will achieve. Otherwise if you want an excuse to play with computers, switch to another job. Don't waste your students' or taxpayers' money just so you can goof around pretending to be "innovative".
You Obviously Don't Teach (Score:4, Insightful)
Obviously YANAT. As someone who is, let me respond to this:
Just as you can't please all of the people all of the time, you are not going to have every student totally interested and completely focused all of the time. The only way you might be able to achieve this (for a brief period) is with some theatrics which probably adds nothing to the lesson as a whole.
Now, lets say a student mind wanders off... if there are few other distractions one of two things are likely to happen:
- The student will daydream a bit then snap out of it, or
- The student will daydream for the rest of the class.
Either way it's an isolated student. They may miss the lesson entirely, but that's their problem later on.
Now, lets create an environment where it is easy for someone to access the web, IRC, IM, etc:
The same student drifts off and decides to check, say, Slashdot. They start reading an article. Decide to post a response, etc. Suddenly 20 minutes has gone by. At this point even if they turn back to the lesson odds are they've fallen way behind in it and will have trouble following it. This can lead to less than brilliant questions about content covered 10 minutes before - wasting other peoples time (and irritating those who are paying attention). They may distract and disturb those around them.
You're right when you say if they're not interested they'll find ways of goofing off. But when it's a student on their own they aren't likely to disturb others, or encourage them to stop paying attention. If they're ICQing classmates, banging away during a lecture, and what not, they are far more likely to be a disturbance to others.
Since we are in networked computer lab, and actually need it for our classes, this sort of thing can happen. The students who are totally wiped out from work and need a few Zzzz's I'll tend to leave alone. Those who are just goofing off, well, they get called on a lot. Hearing your name and looking up to see the lecture has stopped and everyone is staring at you tends to encourage people to follow along.
Learning is work, nobody likes work. It's a balance though, a sterile and boring class will hold nobody's attention. You try to mix things up and keep it interesting as much as you can while keeping it relevant... but sometimes rules and enforcement are needed for the good of both the distracted student, as well as the class as a whole.
(and this is coming from a one time class clown turned into College teacher. If I ever had myself as a student, I'd have kicked my own ass!)
Blockwars [blockars.com]: you know you wanna play.
About time... (Score:2, Insightful)
My own freshman English intsructor took the liberty of setting up a {gasp} MSN message board for us. We could use {gasp} MSN's {poor} implementation of IRC in the room to laugh about the instructor, and each other, in class.
I read through the blog a bit and found that there are many pro's and con's that you will have to deal with, but ultimatly, depending on the type of teacher you are and how you gear interests towards people, it is a good idea. I remember that most of the people in this class, though only a couple of years ago, had no prior experience on the computer. This was their own way of being introduced to things like: typing.
"Oh Great", I can hear you say, but think of it like this: you allready have the right idea by trying to bring people together with machines {OS's} that seem to divide people, alienate them, or otherwise divert them from sociability. Whether your motivations or not I highly suggest you bog down a www.msn.com server with a whole chatroom and webboard for everyone to be able to interact through at _any_hour_of_the_day.
In the long run it will be well worth it because the first semester of bringing all of these things together is bound to be the hardest. By the time you get your syllabus down for next semester you will know what to do and not to do. Speaking of which...
1) Might want to keep the computers off when class starts.
2) Might want to conduct a quick survey to see how the class feels about it.
The class I remember was taught by the best instructor I've had so far. He kept us motivated enough to hit the webboard and chatroom at all hours even though the Admistration's choice of reading material was boring enough to knock out an elephant. At first I thought it was a crazy idea because of the lax network security around the campus, but in the end I'm sure his decision was only to improve on it. Oh, might want to check with the IT building and see if they can whip up a little php or something for you. It would only take a couple of the good ones a day or two for you to have a pretty and stable setup!
"You are about to give someone a piece of your mind, something which you can ill-affor".
My ultimate suggestion (Score:4, Insightful)
The second year of my teaching career I had a principal who said that the teacher himself/herself was the curiculum. At the time I disagreed in that some classes necessitated the transference of knowledge regardless of who or what the teacher was.
Several years later I now see his point.
If the class is about computers and how to use them in a particular fashion then go for it. However, it is apparent that the class is about language and the use thereof to communicate. Typing on a computer is a slow means of communicating. It follows then that precious time can/might/will be lost via that means.
Computers and English Classes (Score:2, Insightful)
I think you need to consider the question, "what exactly do you want to get out of this?" and you will have an easier time figuring out how computers will fit into the picture (if at all).
Others have mentioned wiki's and similar tools which create a wonderful collaborative environment, but may be less than useful if there is no real goal to their use.
Either way it is a mistake to just throw an english class into a computer lab without a definite goal.
Re:My ultimate suggestion (Score:3, Insightful)
Becuase I taught writing when I was in grad school, I actually found that some peer-editing was done better over the computer if the posts are annonymous. At first, people are shy and overly-sensitive when their writing is criticized (even constructively), and people are often unwilling to criticize someone else's writing (even constructively) in person because they don't have great interpersonal skills in that direction. As you are devloping their ability to criticize one another (constructively), have them do peer editing anonymously on the computer. At some point, it may be more constructive to actually do it in person, as they develop, but you will get a heck of a lot more out of them as editors at first if you do peer edits via computer and annonymously.
Use the computer as a catalyst (Score:2, Insightful)
Well then thats the teachers fault. (Score:3, Insightful)
If the teacher cant give an interesting lecture the teacher shouldnt expect everyones attention, however if people dont pay attention and they get a bad grade the students shouldnt blame anyone but themselves.
Wiki. (Score:4, Insightful)
With a Wiki you could see how they go when they have to work together to get something done. Simple wiki software such as UseMod [usemod.com], might not cut the mustard but you could try setting up a PediaWiki [sourceforge.net] based site for them to work with.
I'd imagine that there would be lessons in online anonymity to be learnt here as well....
Re:Do you really want peer critiques? (Score:2, Insightful)
Under less informed instructors, perhaps the peer critique process can degrade into "the blind leading the blind." However, just because a few instructors aren't managing the process appropriately does not mean that the experience cannot be valuable. Proper instructor preparation and guidance can lead to a valuable experience. My students usually start out hating peer critiques, but by the end of the quarter they appreciate the opportunity to learn from each other and receive additional feedback and perspective.
Without peer critiques, the instructor becames the dictator. Sharing writing and approaches to writing is vital to improvement.