bp5_2009112_researchblogweb2.0tools

Using Kevutu to Motivate 
And Engage Young Learners

Nope. It's not magic. Nor is it some secret rite. Kevutu.com is a web site designed to help users share and organize their wants. When I signed up, I was hopeful that this seemingly novel online tool would be useful in getting students to think forward, for themselves.

My Action Research Project is coming together around the notion that young people need guidance and support to design their future. Desire is key to motivation. Students must know what they want, to be motivated to learn. Only then can learner engagement occur.

The Problem

Far too often when I ask young people (particularly teens) what they want to do when they get out of school, they simply don't have a ready answer. Too often they don't have any idea about what they want to accomplish in the future. I could go on and on about the problems that this creates, but suffice it to say that this student apathy is an issue that needs to be addressed!

The Learning Objectives

• Learners should use literacy skills to write at least ten of their wants
• Learners should be able to synthesize a wide variety of thoughts, ideas, and opinions.
• Learners should engage in creative, future-oriented thinking skills as demonstrated through a completed project detailing how their own list of wants could be fulfilled.

The Assignment

    Week 1:

• Create an account on kevutu.com
• Log your top ten ?wants? on the site.
• For each want, assign the appropriate kevutu category. For example, is your want most closely related to events, home, health, electronics, cars, etc.
• For each want, assign the appropriate kevutu priority to it.
• For each want, answer the secondary question fully, ?Why do you want this??
• Write an email invitation to review your wants. Share your wants with at least five classmates, family members, teachers, or mentors, asking them to share feedback or post comments about your wants.
• Reflect on what you chose and the feedback you receive over the week.

    Week 2:

• Analyze yourself. Review all of the information you have posted and collected in kevutu.
• Put your mathematical skills to work and make at least one graph to represent the information related to your wants in kevutu.
• Finally, imagine that all ten of your wants were realized. You got all that you wanted. How did that happen? Write a story to share or construct an art piece to celebrate your achievement to share with the class.

Additional Lessons

• Have students build a web site to share student stories and art, solicit feedback/support from community professionals
• Construct a wall-size map of class wants, connecting similar wants together.
• Have the class breakout into small, homogeneous groups to action plan for the real-life achievement of top wants.
• Create a community of support. Have the entire class commit to support at least one other classmate's wants through a variety of different means (for example, Research, accountability, advice, connections/networking). Celebrate each success as a class.

While the site, kevutu.com, is a bit shallow, I believe students could effectively engage with the tool for a short period of time, as a means of reflection and as a channel to gather feedback from others. I also believe that the learning objectives could be met within the two-week time frame, and a whole new world of learning opportunities, discussions, and follow-up projects could emerge.


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