Fakebook - Make Fake Facebook Pages Using a Tool for Students

so, late last week i tweeted that my class was going to create fake facebook pages for characters from our novel, using the tool known as Fakebook.  the premise is pretty simple:  enter the name, create the bio with simple, straightforward "coding," populate a friends list, and add status updates and comments.  you can add photos, links, and videos as well.  this tool was created for history projects, but i thought it would suit characters as well, and sure enough, when we put the main character's name in and the name, a photo of him came up! pretty nifty.  all but one of the students in this class have their own facebook page (yes, they are all 13), so they were familiar with the concept.

Sample Public Fakebook page with video embedded

Sample public Fakebook page for a character

we've been working on this project for three periods now, and there have been some headaches.  but first, let me announce that the horrible, ancient mobile laptops have been replaced! 20 brand new laptops, a step up from the bargain-basement, teacher-assigned model, are now in one rolling cart. unfortunately, the second cart contains older, used teacher models (512mb), which are still r e a l l y slow and time consuming. i'm managing that by handing them out in reverse order every other day.  how did we get the new lappys you might ask? well, the staff member in the maths department that oversees them went to the store, found what he wanted, and told the tech to buy them. at least that's how he put it to me!  i wonder who he knows...

back to the headaches:  you can save your profile page, but only once you have created a bio, one friend, and one status update/post.  sometimes this is not consistent.  when you save, you put in your choice of password, and the site gives you a link. students did not have access to email to email themselves a link, so some of the quicker ones saved the link in a document (it was long).  the ones who wrote it weren't all exact, which meant they had to start over the next day.

even saved profiles with proper links "did not exist" in some cases, and those students had to start over.

sometimes, the profiles would freeze, and the kids would have to revert to the last saved version, if they had saved it already. otherwise...

if the kids hit "refresh" the entire profile got eaten. caveat:  do not use forward, back, or refresh! this was a special problem for those whose profiles froze up.

a couple other housekeeping things: i don't know about your students, but mine tend to use a smaller window (not maximized) when they work online, and they rarely considered scrolling, so they missed that when they were to save, they had to put in a password, which was hidden at the top of the screen. they encountered the same problem when they went back to their saved profiles - they needed to enter their passwords to edit, but had scrolled far enough down that the password window didn't show and they thought they were stuck. the lack of awareness of simple, basic computer use always tends to make me a bit grumpy.

i'm looking forward to seeing their completed profiles, which i hope will properly document a time in our character's life. i also must reiterate: digital immigrants my behind! these kids can click and click and click on links, sure, but they *know* how to do very, very little without explicit instruction.

final note:  we had some other issues as well, which at first i thought were glitches with the fakebook programme. it turned out that the network connection is going down a minimum of 5x per hour. i have been documenting this with screenshots from my lappy during the last week.

Movie Making, an update

i cannot believe it, but we have been editing our videos for 2 WHOLE DAYS! sorry to shout, but if you have visited here before, you will know that it took me 2 months just to get my kids access to movie maker AND have it work at the same time. i am so excited, i actually remembered to bring a camera and take some pix!

here are my brilliant sweeties, hard at work.

they look determined, eh?  we are getting short on time; i have to have the videos converted & on DVD ready to post THURSDAY. eeeek!

look at us, working collaboratively!

win or lose, my guys have done a fantastic job of creating their projects. i am very, very proud of them, and thrilled to death to have finally gotten together some tech that actually worked!

cheers,

kelly

Blogs and Wikis, an update

so...as i mentioned earlier this year, i am using blogs and wikis with my year 9 accelerates.  i feel a little like i'm floating through dark space without a connection to a mother ship, but i'm trying.  one never gets anywhere without trying (and failing), right?  that's what i'm telling myself, anyhow.  

my biggest concern is that i don't know exactly how my students should be blogging (is there a "should"?).  we have used our blogs for posting poetry and responding to questions from Knowledge4Africa, a site that offers English activities, among which were several poetic options.  (note:  K4A didn't have the actual poems, so i projected the poem from my laptop onto the board while the students answered the questions).  we have posted book reviews as well, and i also used a film study round-off activity on their blogs.  

most recently, however (and most exciting), we have recorded videos of them reflecting on their experiences at high school and in English for the first half of the year.  many of them come from a school with a school-television station, so they are pretty savvy about how they will edit their 1 minute videos.  i am looking forward to sharing some with you early next term.  i am NOT looking forward to the editing/posting of the videos, which thus far in my experience has been a painful and ultimately unfruitful pain in the arse. however, by putting this task in the hands of my students rather than my own, i hope to see successful video uploading. you can peek at our homepage here.

we have also used a wiki this past term for collaborative learning of our film study.  firstly, students were allowed to vote which film they wanted to study.  as long as it had a suitable rating (and it wouldn't make me feel like i was having my teeth drilled to watch it over and over again), i was willing to use it.  they chose Hot Fuzz, and since i adore simon pegg, that wasn't a problem.  

the wiki is only in "draft" form at the moment - i plan to use this holiday time to review their pages, and we will formalise it together during our revision during term 4.  i am wondering how much "amending" i should contribute to the wiki.  if you have used wikis, i would love to have your input on how much contribution you make as facilitator. right now everything you see is student created.

i can't really tell you right now if this experiement has been "successful", especially as i'm not sure what comprises being successful at this point.  what i can tell you is that i have been excited to see a large (30) group of students focused on their work and working collaboratively to direct their learning.  it has been exciting watching them want to do, and doing, more than what is asked, as they come pre-skilled.  and it has been exciting watching them be thrilled with coming to English (something i don't get from my seniors).

i have been fortunate.  this class is timetabled when the best lab at school is avialable, so i haven't had the frustration of dealing with unavailable lab time, difficult to manage mobile laptops, or downright frustrating library computers.  and i am grateful.  

i am aso fortunate enough to have toni twiss, technological mothership, coming to assist my department next term.  i can't wait, and i'm sure my students will be most fortunate to have the benefit of the time spent with her.

now i must stop procrastinating and get back to my NZATE 2009 conference presentation!  have a happy winter holiday.