John Pearce: It's Elementary Kids, Working Web 2.0 With Grade 3-4

Summary and Reaction to:
John PearceIt's Elementary Kids, Working Web 2.0 With Grade 3-4

Mr. Pearce's podcast was a summary of his experiences with different Web 2.0 technologies. More specifically it was what he and his students did with blogs, wikis and podcast.

He took us through a year of his experiences starting from his blog and the difficult choices he made to find the right one, setting it up and ironing out the kinks. He then tried to spread the word and knowledge to his (sometimes) resistant colleagues. He then talked us through what he did with wikis and podcasts. After a bit of experiences with his students he then adjusted his program choices in order to find programs that fit his and his students needs better. In the end he evaluated his work and his student's reactions to the use of these technologies in their classroom.

Overall it seemed that the students enjoyed the experience and recommended that he do it again in the future. I have to admit though that I'm not entirely convinced. I'm not sure whether the time that it takes to teach these programs out weighs the benefit of using them in the room. It takes a lot of valuable class time, that I never seem to have enough of, in order to teach these programs. I wonder how much time Mr. Pearce spent on this and what, if anything, was pushed out of the curriculum in order to do this.

It also brings a question to mind: what about the students that can't afford to have computers at home? Mr. Pearce acknowledges how to solve the problem of lack of internet. But what about the ones with out computers entirely. I work in a school that has these students. I don't want to make them feel inferior in any way.

One thing that Mr. Pearce mentioned that I really liked is that he had parents sign releases that stated that their child's work could be published on the internet. I feel that it was very responsible for him to do that. In general it makes me nervous to put children and their work in a public place. There are too many child predators in the world and I would never want to subject my children to them.

Mr. Pearce did mention one way that I could foresee using podcasts in my classroom. He spoke about a unit of writing about script writing. I think that would be fun and interesting for kids to do and they would learn a lot. This would work with the way that we teach writing in the classroom and making the podcast could be the way that we publish our completed work.

I'm glad that Mr. Pearce's students enjoyed their experiences with blogs, wikis and podcasts. I'm not sure that at this time I'd like to try using them the way that he has described but I'm looking out for ways that will work for me.