D/B 2
Blogs & RSS Readers

Prior to creating and using a blog for this class, I attributed them to simply being on-line journals, or sites that people of certain interests followed. I had no immediate desire to create one for personal use, but saw myself possibly creating one down the line focused on one of my many interests and ideas. I’m glad to now have begun the experience of blogging and my brain is already contriving ways that I can potentially use this technology in my classroom. I will probably also begin a personal blog outside of this class a lot sooner than I had planned. Now my perspective of blogs and blogging has increased, and I predict that it will even further.
One thing that surprised me about setting up a blog, and posting blogs, was how simple it was to get started. I assumed that there would be more difficulties in setting up a blog, which may have led to my initial hesitation. I think using a blog is a great tool and a great way to share and respond to information.

Being that I would not categorize myself as being the most technology savvy (but definitely not the least), I did not even know what an RSS Reader was less than one week ago! After reading about what they were, I was a little more clear, but not quite sure of an RSS Reader’s effectiveness. After playing around with my RSS Reader a bit, it’s use became much more clear, and I found myself thinking of topics and potential feeds to subscribe to very quickly. I didn’t realize how quickly my amount of subscriptions would grow, or even that I had so many interests that could be linked to my RSS Reader. I can definitely see myself using my RSS Reader on a regular basis, even after August 20th!

In relation to Dale’s Cone, I think the blog can fit into several categories depending on how it is used. If a video is linked to a blog, it can represent the dramatized experience, visual demonstrations, educational TV, and motion pictures. If pictures are attached, it can represent still pictures and visual symbols. If audio is attached, it can represent recordings and radio clippings. RSS Readers can also serve in different areas of the cone, but not as many, I think, as the blog. The RSS Readers can definitely represent verbal symbols because much of the content of many subscriptions are in on-line print form. They can also represent the visual symbols, recordings, radio, still pictures, and educational TV through websites and services that are audio/visual or simply visual. Perhaps certain websites could even help students to experience dramatized experiences, exhibits and demonstrations. I don’t think that either resource could be a direct experience within themselves, but they could both lead to direct experiences if the students are expected to apply or “do” what they have seen through demonstrations or contrived experiences. With either resource, the students would be expected to relate the content to an experience and be able to think about the content in an abstract way. According to the cone, both resources seemingly prove to be useful for various students who are at various levels and that come from varied backgrounds of direct experience.



I am still wrapping my mind around how to implement the essential idea of computer imagination into the English classroom. I’m in the midst of a paradigm shift about how to imaginatively use technology, such as blogs and RSS Readers, and not just use them to do what we’ve already been doing in the classroom with paper and pencil, and word processors. This makes me think back to the reading from week 1. Maybe Joseph was correct in saying that we (educators) need to transform our teaching with technology, and not simply use it to do what we’ve been doing all along.

One problem that I can foresee classroom blogs addressing is absenteeism and late work. I can see using blogs regularly causing late work due to absences (which is, unfortunately, a frequent thing for many students in my district) to diminish. For example, If I issued regular assignments by blog, I could post and discuss an assignment on Monday that would be due via blog by Friday of that week. Even if a student were absent a few times that week, they would know to check in to the blog and would still be responsible for posting their assignment to their blog by the due date. This could also potentially help students who are absent for extended periods for family vacations, illness, suspension(s), home-bound education, etc. to stay up to date on the latest content while out of the classroom. A down-side to this would be the potential of certain students not having computer or internet access at home.

Using a classroom blog could also reduce the amount of paper waste used in an English classroom if writing assignments, reading reflections, and reports were to be posted to a blog instead of being written on paper.

One useful function of a blog in an English classroom could be having students respond to their peer’s writing via a blogging system. It is important for students to be able to think deeply about the style, content, and within other people’s writing. A blog could be the medium through which students write a paper or reflection of some sort, either in response to reading, an essay, etc. Then, their peers could respond to their writing through their blog, posting the ways in which they evaluated, received insight from, and synthesized the information from the peer’s writing. Within grammar or conventions lessons, subject-verb agreement, comma splices, and other topics which they could then apply to their own writing and reflect about the use of them in their blogs. The teacher could pose questions that would help the students think deeply about the content, how the student applied the content, and why the content is important to use within their writing.

I could see RSS Reader use being very beneficial for the history, science, or other content focused area. In the English classroom, at least as of now, I mainly see the RSS Reader being useful for research units or for helping students to connect with big ideas and themes from novels and informational texts. The students could subscribe to feeds that relate to their research topic(s), or to global issues and themes that stem from reading done for the class.
Through a wiki, the teacher could help the students to experience the topic or concept through multiple venues such a video (audio/visual), music, text, on-line discussions, and other features available on-line. The student could then use a blog to reflect on their learning about a particular concept through these learning resources.




Wikis

I see wikis as being a wonderful resource for education. It is definitely a tool that can help a teacher and their students to maintain open, clear communication, to stay organized, and to teach and learn in ways that are multi-media. Again with the wiki, I found that it was much easier to set up that I realized that it would be. There were also many helpful resources and video tutorials that gave further information about what a wiki is, examples of use, and taught about how to set a wiki up.

Some ways that I can imagine using wikis in my classroom are:

• Syllabus (general and perhaps weekly)
• Calendar of events and assignments (will help to keep track of assignments and be a useful resource to absent students and parents)
• Tools for homework help (can link videos, websites, or pdf sheets of additional practice for extra tutorial assistance and guidance)
• Parking lot (a useful way for students to post what they have learned about a particular concept)
  
  

Dale, Edward. "The Cone of Experience" 1969

Siegel, Martin. "Falling Asleep at Your Keyboard: The Case for Computer Imagination" 2003