plan b by alangutierrez
The explosion of Web 2.0 and social media has given us and our students a prodigious number of tools to use for collaboration. We have an exponentially growing number of Plans B-Z to use when something doesn’t work. This week, our end of the Skype book club we’ve created with Karin Perry’s (@kperry) students fell apart just because. This time it wasn’t about accountability or technology or really anything we share control over in the classroom. Things just fell apart, but the center of our collaboration – students’ desire to connect and share their reading experiences with one another – has held firm. We’re going to Plan B with the idea that it will help us return to Plan A – small-group Skyping.
What is Plan B? For us, it’s a Ning. While we regroup, Karin’s students will be building a Ning to which they’ll invite us. We’ll all use the Ning asynchronously to share posts and comment on one another’s insights until – here at our end – we’re caught up and able to contribute as we want to. (As I want us to? Have to check on that.)
Despite the challenges we could not meet through our own actions, I’m greatly excited about what the Ning will bring to the reading group. Students will be able to blog – to compose, revise, revisit, an add to their thoughts about boos and reading. Splinter groups can form by book or genre using the groups feature. Students who happen to be posting at the same time can chat. The calendar can be used by students to share power together in drafting reading schedules and in scheduling Skype sessions later on when both groups are ready. I think the Ning will transfer power from the emails and tweets Karin and I have been sending one another into the students’ own social network built around their love of reading. Once we see when we can Skype or chat during the school day – or outside school – students can manage their interactions over reading using multiple social media platforms suited to their purposes with minimal oversight from us adults. The Ning should give students ownership over the Skyping.
While I’m sorry that we’ve hit another temporary FAIL, I’m remain so very grateful for our Skype book club because its teaching us how to persist with challenging tasks and to WIN together.
Thanks to Karin’s students for starting work on the Ning!
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