Chatting It Up Online, by Pamela Livingston.
The article, "Chatting It Up Online" by Pamela Livingston takes a look at the use of online Chat to increase the interest in reading for her students. Through the article Livingston makes several good points about preparing for for the chat. Among these include not telling her students about the chat until she and the staff were fairly sure the chat would happen, checking for potential problem areas like the school's firewall causing issues, display problems as a result of large windows in the computer lab washing out the projection, as well as checking the questions to make sure that they made the best use of the author's time by asking questions which would be hard to have answered through other sources. Livingston also made note that the ability to chat "live" with the author served to increase the experience for her students, as they did not have to wait an excessively long time for the answers to their questions from the author. Livingston also noted the benefit of this chat was in seeing the staff work together in order to make the chat happen, from the computer tech disabling the firewall to maintenance putting up blinds.
I've personally participated in chat sessions of this type before, I believe that they indeed would be a useful tool to use for my students to increase their interest in any number of subjects. I honesty don't know how I would adapt the ideas presented, other than varying the subject matter based on student grade and interest. As much as I would like to say I would be able to handle much more of the chat setup myself, personal experience with school computer systems leads me to believe otherwise. At any rate, I agree with Livingston that such an event would help to increase my students willingness to read, and thus learn, by being able to directly speak with the author of one or more of their favorite authors. By being able to speak to the person behind these books they may be able to grasp more greatly their own ability to write.
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16 years ago
In reading both the article and your post i 100% agree that integrating technology such as computer and online chats would benefit the students as well as the teachers. I also agree with the fact that bring in these types of technology would be difficult in most schools in most areas; however i believe that not only could they chat to people such as authors, but they could use the chats receive help on homework assignments. (especially since at certain parents really aren't capable or willing to put in the time and effort to help their children.) Overall I believe that as you said, in the even that this would be possible, it would greatly increase the enthusiasm and excitement that most students would have towards school and help increase their learning. I also believe that it might increase the excitement of some teachers as well.
ReplyDeleteYou are right on in saying that this would increase student interest in learning the subject. I think that is really the biggest advantage to learning these technologies. I also liked how you emphasized the preparation that is discussed in the article. That was the biggest thing that stood out to me. I love how she pointed out the importance in preparing the students along with the technology.
ReplyDeleteI Look forward to reading more of your post.