The lessons behind the burger…

The intention of the activity is to take a tongue-in-cheek idea, with an element of truth, and to see how far it can be promoted and facilitated via the Internet, in particular, using Web 2.0 technologies. Although the basis of the task my not appear to be entirely serious, the underlying educational potential offers many opportunities that would not be readily achieved through other means.

It is hoped to achieve several specific aims:

• To integrate as many Web 2.0 elements as possible, exposing students to them
• To create an original, engaging, different and yet truly educational task for students
• To assess the degree to which students are truly ‘Digital Natives’
• To investigate and model processes that use Web 2.0 technologies in an appropriate, safe way
• To foster collaboration and co-operation between students
• To provide an example and model for how others might use Web 2.0 technologies in a school
• To achieve genuine cross-curricular integration, sustained over an extended period
• To gauge the global uptake and reach of such a project using the Internet
• To achieve the outcomes using little-to-no cost means
• To employ the 16 Habits of Mind students have studied in Homeroom classes

As teacher across many subject areas, who might be termed an ‘early adopter’ of technologies, I have been looking long and hard at the moves the Web has made over the last few years in its transition from Web 1.0 (essentially ‘read-only’ – an information repository) to Web 2.0; the so-called ‘read-write’, or interactive Web. In my own mind I have been grappling with how to effectively use Web 2.0 tools or environments in teaching. In November 2004, I wrote a proposal for a ‘Year 7 class weblog project’ that would have come in with the ‘new’ (for our school) 2005 Year 7 Homeroom initiative. Perhaps the idea was a little ahead of its time at my school, perhaps there was too much else going on, but it never eventuated. I do remember thinking the top issue then was controlling both student access and how comments coming back might be screened. Since that time, I have seen further manifestations of the Web 2.0 phenomenon appearing, and have kept pondering how they might be used in a meaningful, effective, relevant and safe way.

In June this year at an Australian Council for Educational Research ‘Digital Education Revolution’ Conference in Melbourne, I heard Mark Pesce (an American-born, Australia-based ‘futurist’, technologist and inventor) giving a keynote entitled Those Wacky Kids (video/text). It summarised the advances the Web has made in the last five years and put it in the context of the current generation of students working differently to ‘us’ (ie, teachers) as a result of the technology. This has many parallels with ideas put forward by Marc Prensky (another America futurist), who coined the terms ‘Digital Natives’ and ‘Digital immigrants’ in 2001. The end result is that such commentators posit that our students are becoming less engaged as student expectations and modus operandi shift.

These ideas have been further reinforced at my school with a visit (sponsored by UK Trade & Investment) by Dr John Ingram, developer of the ‘Digital Excellence Awards’ scheme which has taken hold at several schools in Victoria. This program, in all likelihood, is destined to be in place at my school in the primary years for 2009. In addition to all the messages about ICT skill entitlements and competencies – an area I am passionate about – John Ingram was also talking a great deal about student engagement and changing the way technology is seen and delivered in schools.

Finally, my attendance at the Computerlec ‘Expanding Learning Horizons‘ (ELH) conference saw innumerable keynotes and presenters all repeating essentially the same messages; firstly, that teachers need to shift from their traditional way of doing business to keep students engaged, and secondly, that greater collaboration (teacher-teacher, teacher-student, student-student) is essential. Thrown into this mix relating to the first message was the notion that traditional schools are good at ‘killing creativity’.

At the ELH conference – as a reaction to a session I was sitting in at the time – I sent a Twitter (a Web 2.0 application) message outlining that my Homeroom class had a term-and-a-half old burger in the video cabinet at the front of the room. This ‘experiment’ was testing the urban myth that they are so full of preservatives that it will not deteriorate – true, as it turns out. A teacher and Twitter follower of mine – Concetta Gotlieb – who is employed by edna in New South Wales sent a message back asking where she could see the blog, or at least an image of the project. That request, and the kinds of ideas that I was seeing at the conference started me thinking. After some light-hearted discussions with my colleagues at the conference, and others, the idea to create a truly Web 2.0-enabled cross-curricular project took shape.

The sillier the ideas became, the more obvious it was that students would probably love it, that Web 2.0 made it possible with minimal effort and expence. Since that time a few weeks back, the project has taken on a life of its own.

This is a teaching project designed to take something ubiquitous and accessible, and to turn it into an Internet phenomenon using low/no-cost Web 2.0 tools. In the process, I hope to motivate and engage students, and also to see the degree to which the 14 year old of today (in a developed country) is really a ‘Digital Native‘.

As planned, this activity will involve acquiring and monitoring a cheeseburger. Due care will be taken not to identify the source of the burger – and this is irrelevant to the task anyway – nor to attack a brand (and I certainly don’t intend to be subject to any legal action!). Having said this, the fact that some cheesburgers are apparently so full of preservatives will work to our benefit.

The burger is destined to take on something of a personality, with the students representing it online directly, and also undertaking various subject-based qualitative and quantitative tasks. ‘The Burger’ has various accounts online and a location where writing, data and multimedia can be posted for all to see and comment upon: The BurgerLOG.

Several staff associated with my Year 8 Homeroom and beyond, have already been approached for thoughts on taking part in various ways, and are keen to be involved. The students are already informed about the activity, and indeed are extremely keen to pursue it. The class as a whole has already increased appreciably in enthusiasm and motivation.

The activity also marries well, coincidentally, with other initiatives going on in the school presently. The first is the Year 8 Homerooms’ focus on learning about and utilising the 16 Habits of Mind (HOM) developed by Costa and Kallick. We have been looking at these in one-at-a-time during a period per week. The final term task for the year is to be a reflection on the HOM and a presentation as a homeroom group. All of the requirements of this burger project are compatible with, if not enhanced by the application of HOM (which, in short, are sixteen means by which one knows how to behave intelligently when not knowing an answer).

The second school initiative is an investigation of how the application of technology can be beneficial and motivating, especially to boys. The ‘Boys Ed’ project at the school encompasses a couple of technology-intensive projects to see how the boys react and achieve though their course. Although my class is mixed gender, it will still be significantly different to the things we have done regularly throughout the year.

So for many reasons, this project will be an interesting experiment.