Digitize Me

One of the most satisfying parts of digital writing (cyberscript, if you will), for me is the immediate and public audience. Honestly, during the 2008 presidential election, I posted comments on cnn.com twice daily. It was intoxicating to have my righteously indignant rants telegraphed instantly to the public realm. Sometimes, I almost dared people to disagree with me. For someone raised to believe wholeheartedly in the intersection of rhetoric and power, heady does not capture my feelings. (Perhaps this is why I find myself drawn to Tim Wise's blog...)

As an educator (and primary teacher at that!) I would love to harness this euphoria for my young students. Children of seven and eight years old, whose entire lives must seem prescribed by outside forces, would certainly revel in the opportunity for acceptable (yet overt) dissent. Perhaps the digital world is the one most likely to remind young students that they need not become sheeple, or cogs. Simultaneously though, I am terrified of all the real terrors that might befall my students in the surreal world of cyberspace. (How can I free them while safely constraining them?) In the classroom, I have used vehicles like think.com, while quietly telling my kids about outside sites such as sparktop.org. Perhaps this is because I want students to learn the utilities of web 2.0, while also grasping the opportunities.

Simply put, I would love to develop and utilize concrete web 2.0 goals and standards with and for my students.