Thing 3

I think it is amazing that by setting up an aggregator account, all the information comes to me instead of having to go out to look for it. I played around with the bloglines search tool. After an initial struggle, I was able to add a middle school history teacher blog, CNN's feed, and a podcast from NPR. I think I struggled at first only because I was very unfamiliar with this tool. But after I played around a bit I was able to figure it out. It reminds me of the willingness kids have to play around with technology until they figure it out. On the other hand, adults often give up or are not even willing to figure it out. This is one area where we can certainly learn a lot from our studens...be willing to take risks and try something new.

I could see a teacher using this to gather a lot of information quickly and easily. I find it hard to find a lot of people who teach ancient world history in a middle school, so finding a blog about this subject area would allow me to collaborate in new and exciting ways. It is also a great way for me to keep on top of current events.

A couple of years ago, we had a speaker at our beginning of the year kick-off for the entire district. He spoke about RSS and showed us this tool on a screen in a huge gym. Without being able to manipulate this tool, no one understood what he was talking about and we all were very frustrated. Now that I understand what he was presenting, I wish it would have been offered as a workshop and not as a motivational speaker.

This makes me reflect on the history day blog. Maybe showing the kids on the screen wasn't enough. I have some media center time coming up...perhaps I need to let the kids log on and give it a shot at school before expecting them to try it at home.