Global Stories Emerging

This week, I am embarking on my first digital experience with students and a Wiki. Students will be posting stories of fictional characters who live in Latin America. The stories culminate several weeks of online research and pre-writing activities. Interestingly, I decided to start this project with just one class of 24 students. When I presented the Wiki and the digital process for this project, some students became anxious. Out of 24, only 11 wanted to actually use the Wiki. The remainder wanted to revert to traditional writing ie. a word document.

I am still working with the students but I feel that I could use a technology specialist to assist me in my quest to teach those students with less confidence in the digital world. I want this project to be not only a learning process but also a memorable one for the students. My goals for learning about Latin America have already been met. I am now anxious about the quality of their writing and whether they can create digital masterpieces....

Some of my students will probably teach me in this process and hopefully as the year progresses, my anxiety will dissipate some.

Investigating Twitter

Wanted to see the global impact of Twitter since I recently joined and have been extremely curious. Seems like a place for people to create an inbound buzz about their policies or businesses but seems less user friendly for social networking compared to Ning or Facebook.



It would be interesting to analyze whether Twitter's ranking around the world is dependent on cultural norms. Why, for example, is China ranked in the 300s when Indonesia is ranked in the top 20?