Five dos and don’ts fresh from the classroom:

1. DO introduce your students to new technology in the classroom setting.

If you want to incorporate new media in the classroom, don’t just expect that all of your students will be able to set up the proper accounts, get on the class blog, figure out where the “new post” button is, etc. on their own.  Any classroom–even the college classroom–will have a wide variety of students, some who have had less experience with new media technologies.  Don’t let the digital divide put students behind from day one by being there when your students are learning new technologies.

Now that my students have posted their first blog post while in class, they’re no longer intimidated by the blog post that’s due for homework tomorrow.  They know the technology, and can now focus on their writing.

2. DON’T try to have all your students get new online accounts from the same IP address on the same day.

Two programs we use in my classroom are Blogger and Google Documents.  Both require a Google account.  About half my students had Google accounts already, and I falsely assumed that the rest of my students would be able to get Google accounts while we were working in the computer classroom. After all, it worked last semester.  The problem we ran into was that the computer lab uses one ip address, and with so many people trying to get a Google account from the same ip address, google marked the ip address as spam.  As a result, two of my students still don’t have google accounts, though hopefully by Wednesday that problem will be resolved.

Next time I’m emailing my students a week before classes start and asking them to get a Google account before the first day of class.

3. DO design the first day’s new media activity so that those who were quickly able to set up their accounts don’t get bored.

While it took some of my students 20 minutes to set up their accounts, some students were done in 2.  Luckily, the activity was for them to create a blog post and then post comments on other people’s posts.  Those that were able to set up their accounts quickly were able to read and comment on a larger number of posts, and didn’t have to sit there twiddling their thumbs.

4. DON’T plan too much for days that you’re introducing students to new technologies.

My goal for the computer classroom was to have my students 1. create their accounts; 2. post their first blog post, a one paragraph description of their writing process; 3. comment on other’s blog posts; and 4. turn in a Google Document describing their course goals.

I quickly realized that some of my students would not even get to the third task.  I decided not even to introduce the fourth task, because it required a separate technology and I wanted my students to spend enough time writing to produce quality blog posts and comments.  Google Docs will just have to wait.

5. DO interact with your students and their new media writing on a regular basis.

This is something I’m trying to be better at this semester.  You show value to new media writing by interacting with it, participating in it, not just by giving students a grade.  So while I won’t be able to comment on every single blog post my students write (each of my students writes 3 a week) I should comment at least as many times as I’m requiring my students to comment.  If I expect my students to have an online conversation then I should be there for it.  Yesterday, whenever students didn’t need my help, I tried to comment on their blogs.  In my 5 to 10 minutes of downtime, I was able to comment on at least 3 people’s posts, adding my own thoughts.

My goal is to be a mentor to my students, a teaching collaborator, and interacting with my students and their new media writing is key to acheiving that goal.

What other dos and don’ts have you picked up from using new media in your classroom?  I’d love to hear your insights and ideas.

On the Media recently interviewed Sasha Frere Jones (who writes for the New Yorker) in a piece called Talking Tween.  Brooke Gladstone mentioned that Sasha’s writing style–and even approach–for the New Yorker is extremely different than the way he writes on Twitter.

Sasha explained that if he writes the same way for all these different venues, “I’m not going to get anywhere with my writing.”

This is a great lesson for teachers planning on using new media technology in the classroom, who give new media writing assignments to their students.  You may be justified in demanding basic capitalization conventions (as I do for most new media assignments), but you’re not benefiting your students if you’re not allowing the medium to change both the students and their writing.

Sasha explains his attentiveness to genre: “The only way I’m able to figure out what they [new media technologies] do is by using them. The Web uses links intensely, which you can’t do in print. You’ve got images. Twitter has this built in limit, which affects the voice in an interesting way. Why not take it for a spin?”

The key is to use new media genres for what they do best.  To use a preschool metaphor, don’t try to force a square block (a traditional assignment) into a circular hole.

There is nothing inherently magical or perfect about the college essay form.  Because while I grade college essays, unlike new media genres, I wouldn’t read them in my spare time.  In his book The Rhetoric of Cool, Jeff Rice also points out that there is nothing special–or intrinsically more persuasive–about having a thesis-driven argument. Spend just a few minutes reading new media writing, and this will become obvious.

New media technology offers new potential for what writing can do.  New media writing is no longer limited to words on a page–video, pictures, audio, and interactivity are now a part of the writing that happens in all workplaces and academic disciplines.

In his interview, Sasha Frere Jones explained, “If I’m not letting the technology take me somewhere, then why am I using it?”

A fair question, that all of us should ask ourselves.  Don’t make your students write new media in the same way they wrote old media.  But don’t let new media just affect your students. Let new media technology change both you and your writing.

Who is the student of new media? A student is someone who is learning, often in a serious, focused (and institutionalized) way.  Anyone who uses new media is a student of new media–partly because its ever-developing nature requires constant learning.  Just as being able to speak English does not make you literate, being able to use new media does not make you literate.  The true student of new media doesn’t just consume new media–they also write and create new media.

Who is the teacher of new media? Traditional education is beginning to teach new media, from the college classroom all the way down to elementary school.  As a result, teachers from diverse fields (English, Mathematics, Physics, History, etc.) are also having to be teachers of new media.  But traditional teachers, while important, are not the only teachers of new media.  Teenagers are often new media teachers, helping their parents perform necessary web functions.  Friends help each other create new media, and teach each other the “rules” or protocol of social media web sites.  And anyone who does something original with new media teaches other creators additional ways that new media can and should be used.

In the world of new media, we are all students and teachers. All of us can become more literate, conscious, and active users of new media.  That’s what New Media Classroom–both the blog and the website–are all about.

Do you have thoughts on what should be on the new media classroom?  Suggestions for improvement?  A resource you’d like me to review or to put on the “New Media Resources” page?  Just let me know.