Using twitter to learn more about stereotypes

Our Year 9 students are currently participating in a project with international students from 6 countries called It's a small world. We are asking the students to explore the notion of stereotypes. By making connections with students from 5 schools from 3 other countries, Pakistan, USA, Malaysia and Australia we are hoping that students will be able to break down typical stereotypes by getting to know other students through a ning. We are using two of the Intel Thinking with Technology tools and a wiki to share our thinking.
One of the first tasks for students to do was to rank characteristics according to how they think others view them. Our students were finding this really difficult to do. By pure luck I happened to read a blog post by Tom Barrett about how he had used twitter to ask fellow twitters to share with his students the probability of it snowing in their location.
It gave me an idea.
so on Tuesday morning I sent out a tweet asking for responses to this..

Good morning all. For Yr 9s studying identity . When do you think of Aussies, what characteristics do you think of?










Within 10 minutes we had some fantastic answers from around the world

janenicholls @annieb3525 Being an Aussie I think we are resourceful, blatantly honest and loyal! but I'm uncomfortable describing a ppl group!

middleclassgirl @annieb3525 you could look at comedy where some good st are or go to pictureaustralia.Org and look at one of the pic trails

hopeinhell @annieb3525 hmm.. ok.. easygoing, beer-slurping, binge drinking, bbq-ing, slow-drawling, adventure hunting.. to name a few.. :D

paulrwood I try to learn so much from what I read about Aussies doing. Great folks from a different part of the world. I am in Texas

suzievesper @annieb3525 - I have some negative (but not necessarily the way I think!) Brash, uncouth, racist. Some positive - resourceful, sporty.

paulrwood I am sorry to say that I assoicated so much with the "shrimp on the barbie" commercials. Now my boss of 14 yrs is from Brisbane

lenva @annieb3525 - Aussies = casual and laidback. enjoy outdoors. confident in expressing themselves. not afraid to disagree.

SarahStewart @annieb3525 Brash but fun. Give it a go attitude. Not as sophisticated as some nationalities. Very effective at what you do eg sports...

SarahStewart @annieb3525 ...but a little redneck at times :)


onlineteacher @annieb3525 Tough. Fearless. Individualistic n opinionated. Straightforward. Kinda like way USA was 100 yrs ago *:-) Luv u guys *:-)

Some of the responses certainly got our brains and our mouths moving. Some students took offence at being considered redneck or brash and opinionated. But on the other hand it really made them think about how they also put people into stereotypes and how offensive that might be to them.
So thanks to all who contributed. It really opened the eyes of our students and had added a whole new depth to our understanding.

Working with Nings

This semester I have decided to try something completely different with Year 9/10 IT elective class. I want my students to consider how their world is influenced and is changing due to the internet and in particular Web 2.

Using curriculum framing questions as our guide, I have posed the questions

How is our world changing? as our essential question.
Then as our unit questions I have asked
How does the internet influence our lives?
Why do so many people now share their lives on the internet?
How do people share on the internet?
How can we ensure that our online safety and reputation is not compromised or damaged?
and as our content questions I have asked the students to answer
What does the term Web2.0 refer to?
What are data mashups?
What are blogs, wikis, social bookmarking, social networks, video sharing sites?
What is an online profile?
What is cybersafety and cyberbullying?

While they are exploring these answers they will be using web2 tools such as a wiki to share their resources, their own blog to reflect on their own and each other's learning, a ning to communication and collaborate with each other and many other online tools to demonstrate their learning.
It's only early days and this is a journey that we will all be undertaking together.

I have already enlisted a class from a neighbouring school who will be joining us this week and we would love others to join us. So if you have a class of 14, 15, 16 year olds who are interested in joining us on a journey of discovery please email me or comment to this post and I will send you an invite to our ning and our wiki. As teachers we can also collaborate in the projects and activities that we will have students undertake.

Wiki http://web2teen.wikispaces.com/

Ning http://web2teen.ning.com/ Because this is a ning for Year 9/10 students at this stage I have made the settings private so you will need to email or ask via the comments on this post to ask for an invitation.