Situation Report 2

Project Overview
This week we entered the classroom for the first time. We introduced our idea to the second graders and had a discussion of our topic. We asked the students about literacy and why it is important. It was a very successful visit to the school. It was really great to see how excited the students are about our project. We introduced blogs to them and hit a little snag in our plan when the blogging website did not work on the student’s computers. So we demonstrated the blog on our teacher’s computer. We now plan to use Edublogs for the students to blog about literacy.

Current Roles and Responsibilities
My current roles have not changed from last week. I am still responsible for organizing the Thursday Roundup. Lauren and I came up with the lesson plan for this week and what we were going to work on for the rest of the semester. I was also one of the group members that were responsible for going into the classroom to work directly with the class.

Current Project Status
We are currently starting work in the classroom. The students will make their blogs next Wednesday (Monday was our plan before we realized that it was President’s Day). We are going to just have the students sign up for their own blog and if we have more time next Wednesday we will have the students write their first blog entry. We are going to encourage the students to work on the blogs on their own time if that is something they would like to do.

Preliminary Findings
I have found that it is truly inspiring to students to use social media in learning. They are just so excited to work on this blog, they want to write in it when they are not with us, they want to write their own stories etc. It is amazing to me that the students are actually wanting to learn. One of my group members sent me an article for the Thursday Roundup about the role of social media in a protest. I cannot believe that it has that much of an impact.

Next Steps
We plan to work in the classroom on our blogs and other social media.