Reflection

When I planned this project, I thought that the parents and students would be more interested in making posts and viewing their progress. I pictured students, teachers, and parents sharing dialogue and photos relating to the class and school in general. I sent an e-mail to the student’s math teachers and to the principals requesting that they go to the page to see their student’s progress. I am not sure if they went to the site or not, but they did not post or “like” the site. When I introduced the project to the students, I asked them if they liked to post on Facebook. All of their hands shot up and they all wanted to talk about being on Facebook, but for some reason they would not post about the class. One of the reasons for their lack of motivation may be that the students are not really graded for the PACE class. The students are given a pass fail grade and I can’t see failing a student because they did not post on Facebook. Another obstacle to success may be that we could not view or update the page during class. The school computers have Facebook restricted. I believe that if we made posts a few times during class and viewed the page as a group it would increase motivation and interest. I plan to continue updating the page next year as other groups take on similar projects. I like that the page kept me up to date on my photography of student work. We have a wonderful archive of a years worth of hard work. I submitted many of the photos to be included in the yearbook. Not many teachers have this many photos of one class or project. I found that the students enjoy taking pictures, but they are not very good at it. They like to take photos at strange angles and zooms. If we could do uploads during class, maybe the students would see examples of good photos and eventually take better photos themselves. NETS-S #5, Digital Citizenship, is a large component of this assignment. The students need to know what is appropriate for posting and what can get them in trouble. If you look closely at the Facebook site you will notice that there are no names except mine and the other 2 teachers. No student names are used on the site. Hammond is not mentioned either. The only way someone would know that the site is from Alexandria, Virginia is if they looked on the Alexandria Seaport Foundation’s website for their address, but the neighborhood where the Foundation is feeds GW Middle School. During class we had to explain to the students about not using names and the reasons why we wanted the page to remain anonymous. The only mention of a student name is by his mother. I believe the students understood our reasoning.