17 syllables of excellent teaching resource: should it be used in schools?
Just today I found this interesting web resource that could be quite useful for teachers as well as students. It’s called Haiku. Haiku is an interactive website builder that can be used to communicate between teachers and students. It can be used to supplement classroom activities, or even to teach the class completely online. It includes a messaging system so students can communicate with each other as well as the teacher much like email, has a dropbox system that allows students to turn in work from home, and a number of widgets for teachers to add and move around at will. The site allows adding text, audio, video, images, web links, and files so there are plenty of options on how to present material. In addition to all of this, it’s free for students, and very inexpensive for schools.
But in order to put such a site to use in a classroom, it must be approved by administrators. Some may see it as unnecessary, and may argue that it wouldn’t be used. But when you consider that several schools already put it to use, and similar systems are heavily relied upon in colleges (such as the Blackboard Learning System here at KSU), it’s hard to deny that such a site would have great potential.
Another argument may be that there is the possibility of abuse by both teachers and students, allowing private conversations between students and between students and teachers that may be considered cheating or unprofessional, respectively. This risk not much exaggerated beyond what is already possible with email.
One argument which I would consider really legitimate is the fact that not all students have consistent access to the internet. This could prove to be a problem if teachers require that assignments be submitted via haiku. A good way around this would be for teachers to use the site to supplement class material, and allow students the option of submitting assignments online or in person.
