My own experiences with 21st century literacies

In the past few years of my teaching, I have traditionally utilized online texts, video and audio podcasts, games, and presentations: Web 1.0 tools. As a result, students demonstrate striking improvements in passive language tasks, reading and listening. They have also demonstrated a striking lack of improvement in production tasks, writing and speaking. It is my goal to now move to creating a balance in the classroom of learning activities that will address both active and passive competencies in students' new language.

To this end, I worked with students (see Participants link) to create their own wikis and link them to the class wiki. The students that will be in my classes next school year, took part in an intensive summer writing program at my school. I worked with the teachers to incorporate the "wiki lesson" into their program. As with anything new, there were successes and difficulties and some suprises. The students were to join http://www.wikispaces.com/, create their own wiki and link to the class wiki. Then they were to work collaboratively on a new page with class tasks. In the two class periods (one hour each) students only got as far as creating and linking their wiki.
Observations
Students in lower level ELL class engaged in the process more successfully. There was a greater number of students that completed all or most of the task of creating their own wiki and linking it to the class wiki. The group with greater skills in English seemed to see this task as simply more "school work." They said as much at the beginning of our time together. Once they realized they were being encouraged to use this space and their language skills to show who they were and that information would be able to viewed any time or anywhere, they showed greater enthusiasm and motivation to participate. In contrast, the group less competent in English showed skill in the tasks and seemed to enjoy the process from the start.
Difficulties
Students are accustomed to not being a creative part of their own learning process. They anticipated (in the 2nd group) an assignment similar to what they usually are told to do. It was hard to get them to focus on the task of creating their own space on the internet. The more advanced group also had a broader knowledge base of the Web 2.0 sites (the social networking ones). They only knew one purpose for using these technologies (which they believed could not be used in school) and, for them, it was going to be boring and "not cool at all" to have to use these digital tools in their class.
Successes
Many students now have their own space on the web, that has multiple purposes. The members of their wikis can not only view their information but also be an active participant in the creation of it. They also realize the potential of the wiki to be something people from their home countries could view and join in participation. Additionally, the wikis seem to have no problem being accessed from school. Many of the other digital tools are restricted by my school's internet filter.