Web 2.0 meets Middle School

I teach 6^th grade students and they are everything you’d expect 6^th graders to be; squirrely, inattentive, curious, energetic, and still unsure about themselves and the world around them. It’s weird because I’ve been missing them since school has been out for almost a month, yet in May I couldn’t wait to be rid of them. I guess that’s just at the life of a teacher!

We all remember middle and maybe some of us wish we didn’t remember those awkward years. Well, it’s pretty much the same, the students are going through that awkward phase of their lives but with social media and Web 2.0 added into the mix. So therefore, it is now up to the teacher to facilitate the learning of web 2.0 in the classroom along with the regular subject curriculum.

In an article by Burns titled “Beyond Difference: Reconfiguring Education for the User-Led Age” he talks about how it there is a growing need for education to address the process and practices of Web 2.0 technologies. While the article speaks to universities,  I’ve seen this need myself in my 6^th grade classroom. Young students do not know how to properly use the internet whether that be for personal use or school use.  When I first started teaching 6^th grade I realized the students would go onto Google images, type in a key word, find a picture they liked, and use that picture or site as a reference source for projects.

Also, Wikipedia is like the students’ bible when it comes to research and some use it as an end all means of information. Burns discusses the use of Web 2.0 technologies like that of Wikipedia in the critical component of the C4C’s. When there are technologies like that of Wikipedia that allow users to edit information and it is up to the consumers of that information to discern whether or not this information is to be trusted, something that middle school students need to learn.

So, throughout our annual History Fair project, which teaches students historical research skills and MLA formatting, students are taught how to properly use Google and Wikipedia to research their topic of choice. I normally take about a month and half out of the regular World History curriculum to teach online researching and using other tech tools such as Microsoft Word. This month and a half is not a solution to teach them everything they need to know about Web 2.0 and other technologies, but I hope it is a good start.