At the beginning of last year I went to the Tech department at the High School I teach at and asked if I could set up a myspace site to communicate with students outside of the classroom.
They laughed at me.
The problem with wanting to ban things is that it makes them even more popular, and, since unregulated, more dangerous (don’t take this concept too far though….). On one hand we have myspace as an unregulated site where students brag about drinking and having sex, pedophiles thrive, and no one is who they appear to be, and and on the other hand we could have a community where a teacher is regulating the use simply through the fact that they are present, observing.
But I digress.
The real reason I am writing is to reflect on the idea of using blogging in the classroom. I teach physics. I can see it now… “What are your feelings about Albert Einstein in relation to the fact that he claimed that Quantum Mechanics could not be correct, stating boldly that ‘God does not play dice?’” A you can see, I am not sure how I personally would use blogging. Could I use it as a questions and answer session? Sure, if I wanted to figure out how to type equations into the blog programs, and if I wanted to monitor the site in the evenings. As reality sets in, however, I don’t see blogging in the Physics classroom as something that would enhance learning; it would simply be another ‘gimmick’ to get students ‘intrinsically motivated’. Actually, I’m not even against the idea of the gimmick to hook students, but I think that the gimmick should lead to enhancement in some way. However, was wrong once, it could happen again. For now I think I’ll take my chances with websites, Powerpoint, and Myth Busters.
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