My Advanced Tech students never cease to amaze me. In February, Wes Fryer posted an invitation to join him in a Skype conversation on Safe Digital Social Networking (DSN) for a presentation he was doing in St. Louis. Although he posted the invitation at 0:dark o’clock, I happened to catch it in my early morning reading.
When I arrived at school, I caught one of my 8th grade students and asked her to “round up the usual suspects” for a chat about DSN. It was early, and she could only find one other classmate who was awake enough to say, “Yes,” to the invitation. We plunked down my MuVo TX-FM in the middle of the table in the classroom, and with absolutely *no* preparation (did that show, Wes?), I started asking them questions. Their answers, comportment and maturity delighted me!
I contacted the parents of both kids for permission to broadcast the interview, then Skyped Wes and sent him the unedited file just minutes before his presentation began.
My kids were able to use simple tools to speak to educators many states away, and to provide a “young teen” view of how valuable DSN is to them. Isn’t this what teaching and learning are all about? I don’t know how much impact their recording had on the presentation participants, but I do know that those two students walked with their heads a little higher that day…and now I am besieged each morning as I enter the school building with questions about, “Anything cool today, Mrs. B.?”
What a wonderful start to each day!
(You can hear our brief interview here.)
I thought this was wonderful also! The lack of formal preparation wasn’t glaringly obvious! It is remarkable that rather impromptu interactions over previously formidable and even unsurmountable obstacles of space, time, and other things are now possible via technologies like Skype. Thanks again for helping inform our St Louis audience with some youth perspectives on DSN!
Comment by Wesley Fryer — March 26, 2007 @ 11:16 pm