Is it weird that I feel like Zuckerberg?

Something amazing is happening in my class at the moment.

The idea has been cooking away, like all big ideas do, for some time now. Little tidbits of information would be added to the pot, I would hear or see or read something new, that would lead me in a new direction.

Like the ingredients for a great recipe, these thoughts gradually accumulated.

Yesterday, my online community was born. Research tells us that prospects are poor for online communities that are unsupported by offline contact in some form. So my existing community of learners, my year seven class, were offered something new to try - a simple, closed social networking page (a Ning to be precise).

I was at a PD last week, run by Steve Hargadon, who spoke of his teenage daughter who had recently been allowed to sign up for Facebook. He said he could see her transforming in front of him, as her world-view expanded. In the last 36 hours, I have started to see the same thing happening for my students.

There was a buzz in the room as they played with it, tinkering, tweaking, personalising. Taking ownership. Later in the day, they were completing some online tasks, and the website was open in the background. It wasn't a distraction, they still worked, but they remained connected behind their computer screens. We started a conversation about the guidelines for their community, how we could make it a positive environment. Nobody needed to have an acceptable use policy shoved at them, yet the phrases they chose could have been taken from one.

After school, they kept playing. Exploring, seeing what it could do. They shared photos, comments. Connections.

They were talking about it at school today.

I knew from the buzzing of emails pushing through on my phone during a lecture tonight (I heard John Hattie speak, which is a whole other blog post) that there had been some activity, but I was amazed at what I found when I opened up the site. Aside from the chatter, which is valuable enough in itself, aside from the shared and appreciated photos and videos, here were 13 year old kids, online at 9:30, having message board conversations about how they as a class had slacked off in the last few weeks, and organizing to meet up before and after school to catch up on homework. Ideas sparking other ideas, with another wanting to create (quote!) "a list of educational websites".

These kids don't often say a lot in class.

But I think I'm helping them to find their voice.