1. As mentioned in my previous blog, I am considered a Net-Gener. Technology, in some way has always been a big part of the world I live in. After reading one of the articles, to which I related far too well, I realized, as I was reading off my sister’s laptop, watching TV, and checking my email, that the world of technology is more relevant to me than I thought it was. I have more in common with my tech-savvy students than I realized. It’s not the “language” of the technological world that I’m concerned about. My students and I are at least somewhat “fluent” in technology. What concerns me when it comes to incorporating R/W tools in the classroom, is the language in which they are writing. In the article emphasizing the effectiveness of blogging, many of the student feedback sections had grammatical/spelling errors, and am sure the ones that were chosen had the fewest errors. I appreciate that students can freely voice their opinions without the constraints of traditional pen and paper and/or size 12 font with 1 inch margins. I also like the fact that other students can give feedback and that students actually enjoy writing. But if the quality of their writing is poor, what skills are being reinforced? Last I checked, btw, lol, g2g, kool, etc. were not found on standardized tests. I think freely blogging may be a great way to get students thinking deeply about content, but when will they learn to write properly?

Also, I don’t think that all of my students are quite as surrounded by technology as those in these articles. Some kids (and schools) can’t afford technology! Not everyone owns a blackberry, computers, digital camaras, mp3’s, and everything else the articles have mentioned. So how do you keep those students from feeling left out when classroom assignments become largely technology based?

2. I didn’t realize that digital photo tools were R/W tools (actually, I didn’t know what R/W was, but was surprised photos fall into that category). Flickr and Shutterfly seem really neat. I also learned what an aggregator is (I had never heard the term before this), and thought that the webcams kept in the African wild and around Active Volcanos would be really fun to use in a science classroom. The communication via webcam between western/asian students (regarding the different versions of a fairytale) was really a good idea, and would be perfect in a Foreign Language classroom. I noticed though, that that project was funded by Time Warner! So, chances are it’ll be awhile before my school is financially capable of doing it.

Googledocs is a place where students, or anyone for that matter, can store documents online. Much like Microsoft Word, but on the internet. I have never used it, but I imagine it is considered R/W because it can be accessed and shared by anyone, anywhere (if they are set as able to view it).