The Newman Experience

I WAS feeling very good about this past year. Then I discovered that I’m holding my students back from what they REALLY need to know how to do. That probably sounds hostile, and perhaps there is some hostility, but there is also shock and awe, and an understanding that there must be some truth in those videos and that article. I liked one of the questions about the web — Where did we look BEFORE we had it for all that information?. We didn’t even realize that it existed! Apply that elsewhere..what did we do before Mapquest, Netflix, even Microsoft Word, for Pete’s sake. I’m getting off topic. I do think there is some amount of, “OK folks, get on the bus…get on the bus! We’ll tell you where we’re going later.” And you can easily forget all the great thinking you can do with a pen and a piece of paper, and you can start questioning everything you do in a negative way. After all, my classroom DOES NOT resemble Mr. P’s in terms of feeds and community podcasts and bookmarks. I totally can see the merits, and even glory, in what the man is doing with his English classroom. I can begin to envision how it could enhance and transform what I do. It all feels very Biblical. Web 2.0 is Noah’s Ark. Get on, or drown. And once again, I’m not trying to be hostile. I actually do think that much of this sounds very exciting and promising. I’ve got tons of assignments that could benefit from more collaboration and interchange of ideas and access to tagged material and each other’s work. I do wonder if Mr. P ever sleeps. If there are endless streams of student blogs and wikis coming in on top of papers and everything else, can you ever rest? I know there must be methods. You can’t (and shouldn’t) grade everything students produce. But there AREN’T 26 hours in a day (a la that video). And what happens if we all live that way?