RSS- 4

Over the past few weeks I have checked my igoogle and reader almost daily and have really enjoyed reading up on what others have been doing and learning new things from the other blogs I've followed. I found a few podcasts too and listened to a few "episodes" of those. I really like the convenience of being able to download them to an mp3 player so that I can listen to them when I have the time.

Looking back over my discovery and time using igoogle and reader, I can see many uses of them for life. RSS can make life so much easier for everyone if people just give it a chance and start using it. For it to be effective, you need to check it on a regular basis. I really like igoogle because it offers me so much information all in one place. Without it, I would have to go out to each individual website to find the things that I need.

Reader has helped make life easier too because I can see when my classmates and others I follow update their blogs rather than going out to the site and seeing no change. Visiting just two different sites, I can get everything I need.

As far as my future career, I can see myself using both of these quite a bit. In my classroom, I could have the students do some blogging and then subscribe to their blogs so that I could grade them all in one place. I could also get the parents set up with an aggregator and help them to subscribe to a class blog where I could post assignments and other things. That way, the parents will have the ability to see when I update rather then checking it all the time and seeing no changes.

We could also set up a class igoogle page so that every morning when we come in we can see all the daily information that we want or need. This could make calendar time, weather, and any other daily activities much quicker and easier. We could also have a daily thought or a daily vocabulary word that the students could write down each day. I see endless possibilities for using igoogle in the classroom because so many teachers have an overhead up when the students come in in the morning that they wash off and change each day. How great would it be if the students could design themselves what they want on this daily page so they will feel more in control of their learning.

I really enjoyed this process and plan to continue using both igoogle and reader in the future.

RSS-3

So I've been at home this week so have had a bit more time to work with my pages and figure out what's really important to me. I added a few more feeds over the weekend just to get some more diverse blogs in there. I added one about Literacy in the classroom, a Runner's World blog to find nearby races, and one on Political News so that I can stay up to date on the current presidential election. I have enjoyed looking at each of them and think that I might continue because they might be useful in the future.

I had lots of fun looking at all of the different up and coming races on the Runner's World website and found a video particularly interesting on the types of shoes that are best for certain running styles.

The techlearning blog that I follow had an interesting article on Wordle. What wordle does is create customizable word clouds and is a strategy used to help students or adults see the words that they use most frequently. The clouds are created from the text that you provide and then the most commonly used words are most prominent.

It has been very interesting and educational to read up on all of these blogs and also helps me keep up on what's going on in the world. Sometimes being on a college campus you get wrapped up in classes, work, and a social life that you lose touch of what's going on outside of the little campus bubble. Following these different blogs has helped me pop my bubble a little bit or at least put a dent in it.

RSS-Post 2

So I thought I had put this post up late last week but apparently I clicked save instead of Publish so here it is now. I've had a great time playing around with igoogle and following all of my blogs. Igoogle and google reader both make life so much easier, they are great! Igoogle offers me the ease of checking my email, the weather, the most current news, and other little tidbits all in one place. It saves me so much time and energy. Google reader is helpful too because I don't have to locate each individual blog and see if they have updated. The ones that I find most useful there are the class blog and then all of my classmates blogs. Before reader, I had to log in to webct or go to dr. z's blog to find out my assignments for the week and see if other students had updated. With the reader, I can see it all in one page.

I have also enjoyed reading up on some of the other blogs that we were asked to follow. When I was in Ireland, I followed a few of these same ones so it was nice to get back out there and see what the bloggers have been up to.

I especially found this article by David Warlick very interesting. How great would that be to be able to just snap a picture of the book cover and then see a description and rating instantly? I have linked part of the post below and also a link to the snaptell site

SnapTell is a free iPhone app that… Well here’s the description:

Snap a picture of the cover of any Book, DVD, CD, or Video game and within seconds see a rating, description and links to Amazon, Wikipedia, IMDb and more. If you like the item, click on a link to buy it right away.

Well hopefully I find time to read more of the postings but there are so many out there, it's hard to keep up. I will definitely be posting again soon!

RSS-step one

The first step of using RSS is understanding what it is. In my last class of Emergent Technologies we learned about RSS and how it all works. The basic point of RSS is to make life easier and save people time. I don't understand the specifics but having a general idea of how it can save valuable time is all you need. I chose to use igoogle and google reader as my main sites. Igoogle is great because you can set up all of your gadgets for whatever you think you'll use. I personally check my email and the weather daily so I have those right there on my page. I also placed the To Do list and the things to ponder on close to the top so that I could see them right away. The itunes downloads was just something fun I thought might strike up an interest in a certain type of music or let me know when a song is available to download.



This is a picture of my igoogle homepage.

I chose to use Google reader for my blogs to keep the two areas separated and more organized. I subscribed to all of the blogs of my classmates, Dr. Z's, the RWLD blog, 2 Cents Worth, Weblogg-ed, Edublogs and Coolcatteacher. I also looked into other blogs about strategies for teaching literacy in education and other technology in education blogs. I haven't found any specific ones that I wanted to subscribe to yet but have been looking some over and will decide in the next few days.



This is my google reader page. I have my blogs seperated into folders by what group it is which helps me keep them organized.

I have been checking in pretty regularly and am enjoying the convenience of having all my information in one place.

Literacy Tour of Second Life

This is my literary tour of Second Life. I spent the week exploring second life and finding resources relating to language, reading, and literacy. I actually found quite a few interesting places. Enjoy!


1. Second Life Language School

http://slurl.com/secondlife/Tropical%20Dawn/197/46/2003

The second life Language School would be a great place to work on obviously language but to learn about the specifics of other languages. I think it would be fun to sit in on a class of a different language just to see how different it really is.

2. Moku Cove- World History Museum

http://slurl.com/secondlife/Moku%20Cove/117/132/23

This site has lots of great information about different time periods including readings and other background information. It helps to understand what is going on in today's world as well as in the past. I liked that there was literature from each era in this location.

3. LX Bookstore

http://slurl.com/secondlife/Portucalis/78/68/23

This location could give me some great book ideas and also the opportunity to collaborate with others on current literature that would be helpful for use in the classroom.

4. Nonprofit Commons

http://slurl.com/secondlife/Aloft%20Nonprofit%20Commons/177/91/26

ABLE is an international nonprofit public benefit corporation dedicated to social betterment in the areas of education/literacy, drug abuse, inmate rehabilitation and common sense values. This location could give me insight into the importance of literacy and education for the lives of people who are less fortunate.


5. Eduisland II-Discovery Education Network
http://slurl.com/secondlife/Eduisland%2011/60/126/22


I could use this place to collaborate with other teachers and locate lesson plans. There is also a section to download children's literature in ebook format. This is a place I will definitely come back to. There is a specific literature section and lots more to explore!

6. Literature Alive!
http://slurl.com/secondlife/Eduisland%20II/195/211/22

I could use this as a place for discussion circles. There is a group of chairs here set up in a discussion like setting. A group of students or teachers could meet here and have their discussion over a book in Second Life. There are lots of other great resources here and fun things to do for some relaxation time.

7. Alliance Virtual Library

http://slurl.com/secondlife/Info%20Island/227/49/33



This place is full of all kinds of information. There is anything from science to math to technology or even college resources. This is a place that I could send students to find information on any of these topics. I liked the technology area a lot!

8. Rachelville
http://slurl.com/secondlife/Imagination%20Island/128/171/25



This is a great site for relaxing and doing a little reading while also finding out about great children's literature. I think this really was my favorite place because there were just so many resources available. If you click on the sign that I'm standing in front of in my snapshot it takes you to a website with lists of book lists and books that have received award in the past. I also like that it is currently Halloween themed right now because of the time of year.

The class is now in our hands

After class this week I was driving home and thought about what we had discussed in class and how it is going to affect my learning. I'm not sure that letting us go completely will be too beneficial but I'm open to anything and willing to take the risk. As long as we all work together and provide each other with feedback and guidelines, creating our own learning enviornment may be very successful. In education today, teachers and students studying to be teachers are being beaten over the head with new ideas of constructivist learning, student centered curriculum and how learning should be in the student's hands. In my opinion, this type of classroom environment could be very effective to a certain extent. The teacher still needs to play a very active role and help guide the students in their learning. It would do no good for a teacher to say "alright kids, what do we want to learn today?" When the kids respond, the teacher needs to then do something with that subject and give the students opportunities to work with it and learn.

This being a college course, Dr. Z can let us go a bit more because we are more than likely intrinsically motivated and will actively participate. In an elementary school setting, the teacher can not just let the students go and expect results. There needs to be a happy medium of letting the students explore while also providing them with the new information that they are to learn. So it depends on the age and individuals in the class whether or not this type of classroom could work.

We also talked in class about all of the different social networks out there and this made me think about the amount of time it would take to go out to each site and log in. Nobody has the time to do that on a daily basis. At this point, Dr. Z reassured us and informed us about RSS feeds and that you could set it up so that all of your social network sites could be checked in one place. This gave me a little more hope but still did not convince me that I needed to participate in all of them. Many of the sites seem to offer the same benefits and in my opinion it would be best to just choose one or a few and participate in those. It may be helpful to collaborate with different individuals on different sites and use them for that reason. Throughout this week I will be doing research and thinking about how best to create our learning environment. Hopefully by next week, we have all done some thinking and will have a better idea of how to structure the course.

Types of blogs and Classroom 2.0

I thought the reading on the different types of blogs was very interesting because I had never thought of all of the different types before. Blogging is becoming another type of media for people to inform and educate the population or just get their ideas heard. I may start trying out a few of the different types in my posts and see where my ideas go. We also started working with Classroom 2.0 this week. This seems almost like a facebook for teachers. It's a great way for teachers to collaborate with each other and see ideas that others put out there. There are lots of different groups to join to get the information that you need. I'm looking forward to doing some more exploring with it in the next few days.