I love it when I see teachers like English teacher Jenny Johns at work. Jenny has created a great English lesson using Ning where her students virtually become one of the characters in “To Kill a Mockingbird”.

I love this video for a couple of reasons. For one, digital literacy skills are seamlessly embedded into the assignment. This is not a lesson on how to use Ning, it is a lesson about the characters in “To Kill a Mockingbird”, yet it touches upon many issues young people face in a tech mediated landscape. The second reason I love this assignment is that it resonates with the students because it occurs in a space they are familiar with – a social network (note how the instructor has the students “friend” the other characters from the stories).

The video is from the PBS Frontline documentary digital nation.