Digital Age innovation project pt. 2
At RBVHS I was not able to use MyBigCampus because this site is not using this technology yet. However, we do have the use of Chromebooks and what I decided to do instead of using MyBigCampus as a forum is use my own website. I tried to create a climate similar to MyBigCampus because one of my main concerns was my students' digital citizenship. The best thing about MyBigCampus is its security. Students need to log in and their information and writing in private to the class. There is no worry that anything will be public. Also, because it is so contained it makes it easy for the teacher to monitor, which is very important.
The first thing my cooperating teacher & I did when we first introduced the Google Chromebooks to the class was distribute an acceptable use policy and handout on digital citizenship.
In order to emulate the security of MyBigCampus, I created a blog page on this website, in fact. I made a blog page for each of my two classes, periods 4 & 5. Each one has a different password that students must type in to access the page. Students had to log in an complete a quick-write, which is usually a daily routine we complete with paper and pencil. This time they needed to log in. I made sure to go over the rules of what to do and what NOT to do in the acceptable use policy to ensure that the topics would stay academic in nature and free of cyber-bullying.
Students need to feel safe and comfortable. So, while I was not able to use MyBigCampus to achieve this at RBVHS, I now have an idea of how I would roll this out in a class that is at a school licensed to use MyBigCampus.
My students are extremely technologically capable, I found out. A lot of what I had planned did not take as much time as I thought it would--such as a walk-through of how to post. Many students had figured it out on their own, and I quickly found out that I need to move quicker with technology.
Overall, I believe my work-around achieved what I was looking for through MyBigCampus. Creating my own secure forum allowed students to feel safe and secure--and, not surprisingly, students that are usually quiet and never participate actually ended up participating. The forums are closed and private and only students within a single class and the teacher can see a post.
Of course, I did not have any of the extra "Facebook-like" feature that MyBigCampus has--however, I achieved the goal I set out to accomplish, anyway.
The first thing my cooperating teacher & I did when we first introduced the Google Chromebooks to the class was distribute an acceptable use policy and handout on digital citizenship.
In order to emulate the security of MyBigCampus, I created a blog page on this website, in fact. I made a blog page for each of my two classes, periods 4 & 5. Each one has a different password that students must type in to access the page. Students had to log in an complete a quick-write, which is usually a daily routine we complete with paper and pencil. This time they needed to log in. I made sure to go over the rules of what to do and what NOT to do in the acceptable use policy to ensure that the topics would stay academic in nature and free of cyber-bullying.
Students need to feel safe and comfortable. So, while I was not able to use MyBigCampus to achieve this at RBVHS, I now have an idea of how I would roll this out in a class that is at a school licensed to use MyBigCampus.
My students are extremely technologically capable, I found out. A lot of what I had planned did not take as much time as I thought it would--such as a walk-through of how to post. Many students had figured it out on their own, and I quickly found out that I need to move quicker with technology.
Overall, I believe my work-around achieved what I was looking for through MyBigCampus. Creating my own secure forum allowed students to feel safe and secure--and, not surprisingly, students that are usually quiet and never participate actually ended up participating. The forums are closed and private and only students within a single class and the teacher can see a post.
Of course, I did not have any of the extra "Facebook-like" feature that MyBigCampus has--however, I achieved the goal I set out to accomplish, anyway.