I remember the time I first played the Nintendo game system. It was Easter Sunday and I was being Confirmed and brought into the Catholic faith. It was an exciting day. Not because I was becoming a Catholic, but because I was going to be able to finally play Super Mario Brothers. I couldn’t wait. I know I rushed through the normal Easter celebration and wasn’t thinking about the gifts of the holy spirit or the sacrifice Jesus made for me. I was thinking about Mario and beating Bowser in the castle scene. Yes, I was being materialistic on a day when I should have been celebrating and giving thanks. I was selfish and thinking of only myself. What is it about new things that bring about such bad choices in people?
Today during Humanities, we had the boys participate in the first ever CMS Writing Olympics. It was so much fun. The boys were crafting poems, writing stories, talking about writing, and laughing with their peers about the strange word combinations they had created. Writing came to life in the sixth grade classroom today, and allowed for a teachable moment. We decided to have the students use the back channel chat program TodaysMeet to allow the students to write very concise stories. We have never used this program in the classroom before. This was new to almost all of the students. It was novelty. Despite the fact that we discussed the importance of using appropriate language when writing online, some of the students used TodaysMeet as a chance to negatively write about their peers. We of course addressed this with the whole group as well as the select individuals involved. We reminded the students of our core values and the importance of being appropriate online. We explained to the students how this website is open to the public and can be viewed by anyone. They seemed to understand this and when we revisited this website later in the period, the boys were using it very appropriately and having fun while doing it.
So, were the students misusing TodaysMeet because it was a new program or because they didn’t fully understand the expectations? Were they being malicious on purpose or were they simply testing the waters? What is it about something new and fun that makes people want to do bad things? After the class talk and education session, the students grasped the gravity of the program and its true intent. At the start of the lesson, I basically told the students the same information that I reiterated once they had misused it. Were they just so enamored with TodaysMeet that they couldn’t hear me at first? Could I have been more specific? What would have happened had I given the students time to play with the program first, before we used it for a true academic purpose? Would that play time have made a difference? Sometimes students need to explore to figure out how to do or use something.
Perhaps we should not have introduced a new program today for our writing olympics without providing the students a chance to play with it first. All in all, the lesson went well and this misuse of technology allowed us the chance to have a frank discussion with the students about proper online language usage. It was a win-win situation for all. Teaching, like life, is a journey filled with ebbs and flows and forks and cul-de-sacs. It’s how we navigate our way through these adventures that matters.
Holteacher Perspective 