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

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.