Wednesday, September 16, 2009

"Excited" Can Sometimes Be Synonomous with "Frustrated"

I've created a wiki to use in my 6th grade Computer Basics class, and I'm really excited about the new and exciting possibilities that are opening up for my students. Not only am I excited, but they are, too! Technology is their world, after all, and they love doing anything that involves technology. Another thing that excites them about this wiki is that it is unlike anything they are using in their other classes. That alone is reason enough to celebrate.

Now for the frustration. Like anything new, obstacles always seem to work their way into the picture. Case in point...Here I am today, excited about teaching the kids how to edit the reflections page of the wiki, and I failed to see the big picture when it comes to saving edits. I tried to have each of the kids respond to a reflection question and save their edit. The problem was that the only edit that appeared on the wiki once everyone had saved was the LAST edit to be saved. Grrrrrrr! I failed to realize that we would encounter problems when 20 kids tried to save an edit to the same page at the same time. Needless to say, I lost a few excited souls in all the hoopla and chaos of the problem. That sure wasn't how I envisioned today's lesson to turn out.

So I pose this question to my readers...How can I make this work? Please, please, PLEASE send me some suggestions. I know there is a solution. I'm just not seeing it right now.

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