Thinking It Through...

Hi all,

I have been thinking a lot about the idea of blogging. Not just about "computer literacy" skills which affect blogging, but the typology and context of literacy in which elementary level students will use these computer literacy skills to blog or vice versa (children which will learn to read and write by blogging).

A lot of us keep going back to safety issues. Should young children blog, should the format be structured or unstructured (how much should children be supervised or prompted by teachers, or not), and then the most fundamental questions that beg for answers are, "Are our children safe to experiment with learning literacy in the cyberworld or blogosphere?", and "Can our children really learn to read and write using blogging as a tool?"

I ask, "Is it really necessary to expose our young children to this, and if so, is it because of competitive globalization?"

I found an interesting internet article entitled "Hole in the Wall - Can kids learn computer literacy by themselves?" This is an ongoing project in New Delhi, India where a man named Dr. Sugata Mitra defined the term "MIE" which stands for "Minimally Invasive Education". MIE is defined as a pedagogic method that uses the learning environment to generate an adequate level of motivation to induce learning in groups of children, with minimal, or no, intervention by a teacher...

It seems that what the article is saying in a nutshell is that kids are innately computer savvy and can really undergo a process, when given access to a computer, that allows them to teach themselves!

Get this. "This experiment began in 1999 with a single computer literally placed in a hole in a wall between the New Delhi office of NIIT (A computer training school) and the slum outside. The computer was accessible to children and became an instant hit. Local children, many of whom did not attend school regularly, quickly picked up how to use the computer tools, including word processing software and graphics programs and learned to surf the Internet. Some progressed to more complex skills. All of this without understanding a word of English or being able to read at all, even though all the programs and interfaces were in English."

"Wowzy Wow Wow!!," says Jill. This is just as I suspected, my dear Watson. Children are whizzes when it comes to computers, just as children learning a second, third, or fourth language by the ages of 6-10. So, the language of computers or "computer literacy" comes naturally to the little ones like learning a language.

Now, with regard to safety issues, this article stated that Dr. Mitra (the researcher and definer of MIE in India) says that "in five years, across all locations, Hole-in-the-Wall computers have experienced "less than 0.5 percent pornographic access," and that computers "are clearly visible to passing adults." Dr. Mitra states that the fact that both girls and boys have access "completely eliminates pornographic or other undesirable access", he says.

Well, this is interesting. But, one might argue "but we live in the United States", and things are different here. Much different than impoverished, and illiterate children in New Delhi. Or is it really that different? Does culture and society impact the level of threat to a child when using the internet openly? I think young kids, though curious, probably would like to escape from websites exhibiting porn, etc...pretty quickly. I think they would "surf away" as fast as they could. They would think, "Ick-E! Get me back to Disney.com, and hurry!" For the most part, little ones don't want to see this stuff or even think about it.

Now, I also think about children with regard to what age they really begin "typing", so that they can engage in a "chat". According to this website from Ability Net, entitled Keyboarding and Touch Typing for Children, located at

http://www.abilitynet.org.uk/content/factsheets/pdfs/Keyboarding%20and%20Touch%20Typing%20for%20Children.pdf ,

children need to have the literacy skill in spelling of that of a seven year old and up to begin learning to touch type. So, a child really can become engaged in a dialogue with an "unsafe online source" at the age that they can begin to communicate through the keyboard and reveal information about themselves.

Now, I'll depart from talking about "computer literacy" and the age in which a child can begin to blog - to "touch type" or write for themselves, which is about at our 2nd grade level.

What can children accomplish or learn using the tool of blogging?

Well, Kim Cofino, a literacy specialist, of the International School of Bankok located in Thailand has been implementing the practice of blogging in her Elementary School classrooms. She has written an internet article entitled "Learning to Blog: The Elementary Way". A former middle school teacher, Kim now runs a 5th grade classroom at ISB and has offered-up much to instruct us on as far as blogging is concerned. At the very least, she offers us a strategy.

Ms. Cofino did respond to one blogger on her site with this, "Internet use is very different in international schools than it would be in the US. We don't have any mandate to filter or block (like CIPA) and we can determine best use and best practice at the individual school level, rather than at a larger district or board level. It certainly makes things easier to customize for educational needs!"

See cross-referenced articles:

1) Learning to Blog the Elementary Way -

http://mscofino.edublogs.org/2008/01/27/learning-to-blog-the-elementary-way/

2) Blogging is Elementary -

http://www.utechtips.com/?p=1156

In her article she offers strategies from two different years. Both articles are worth looking at to see her approach in integrating the tool of blogging. I'm not going to regurgitate all of this because..."I'm blogging!!!", and this is not a dissertation. I just wanted to blog it and share it with you all. Check out the articles for yourself! Note: She did advocate using one class blog site that all students can contribute to instead of setting up individual accounts...it makes things easier.

Now, what does Jill think she can do to teach literacy in her own classroom with regard to blogging? Does Jill want to implement blogging in her classroom as a strategy for teaching literacy? Well, I believe that blogging is a new form of "journaling"...

I can scarcely recall writing when I was in Elementary School, except for the 3-4 pages stories my mother saved from fourth grade about the adventures of my cat "James Frank Buffington III". She saved one in particular about "The Killer Cat Strikes Again" or something like that...which could have been a great book series (maybe its not too late!). Now they have one called "Warrior Cats"....

My point is that blogging would be wonderful for students to utilize in order to write creatively, JOURNAL, and share if they chose to. You can't get more creative or give much more choice than that. Should they be prompted? Perhaps, like a Montessori student if they were doing the same old thing over and over again, like writing about Pokemon, or Sponge Bob Square Pants, or the Jonas Brothers Band... I believe that students should absolutely have a choice about what they read and write, and what better format than a blog! However, I also believe that entrenched in a world of sensationalism, media, computers, and pop culture, its hard to get kids to distill their worlds back into reality! So, to give them a balance is critical. Let them have the Naked Brothers Band in Grades 1-3 to write about, or The Jonas Brothers Band in Grades 4-8...maybe it's High School Musical from then on...but, then, I remember all my past English Teachers. The ones that taught me about great works for authors such as Frost, Shakespeare, Thoreau, Cervantes, Wordsworth, Cummings, Angelou, and so on and so forth..

So, let them read and then, let them write. Write poetry! Let them write stories! Let them post and share. After they have had their fill of writing about pop culture, then teach them the classics. Never forget the classics and the ones that showed us how to see, feel, and think about their lives, the lives they created, and relate it to the very lives we live in the present - in the now. If they must blog as a tool of expression, don't forget the SOLs and the frameworks to expose them to genres and styles.

So, this is what I'd do. I'd give them choice, but I'd create a sneak attack and have them engage in "Creative Blogging" or "Bloggaling" with the content I feel will provide a solid skillset or foundation of learned literacy.

Finally, let me say, I'm not completely happy about all this blogging in the world. It's not that I'm stuck in my ways. It's just that they'll get exposed to a bunch of nerdy ideas and thoughts -kind of like Sponge Bob Square Pants TV series....Yes, it's clever and creative. But, did they have to put that on TV to teach them to be so irritating? Our poor childrens' little hard-wired minds...which brings me to competitive globalization. Let's push, push, push them to compete to be in there with the competition to get good jobs to make more money for our country and for our families...

I miss the days of no predators, going all around and throughout the Texas A&M University campus with my gang of friends on our bicycles all weekend and during the summer, without a care in the world...no supervision...had to be home at dark....sigh...I wish I could give this to back to students. But, those days are gone. Think: If they had that option, would they be out riding their bikes all over creation without supervision, or would they be immersed in a creative blog unsupervised. Hope this blog was worth your time.

The article entitled "Generation Yes Blog - Hole in the Wall - Can kids learn computer literacy by themselves?" can be found:

http://blog.genyes.com/index.php/2007/05/24/hole-in-the-wall-can-kids-learn-computer-literacy-by-themselves/



Happy Spring Break, all! - Jill