Week two reflection

While I’ve never actually subscribed to a blog or used a blog myself (aside from this one), I’ve often used programs that have that as an option. I have a myspace account (although it’s been many months since I used it) and tried to start a blog on my son, who was born 9 weeks premature. I did fine for a couple of days and then just quit writing. I also have a facebook account. I find that I enjoy looking at what my friends are doing with their lives, especially now that I have a family and don’t keep up with them as much. The only problem that I have with these types of networking sites is that I really don’t have much to say for myself. I’ve never felt the need to broadcast my personal thoughts or emotions out for others to see…I don’t even care enough to keep them for myself; Postman would love the fact that these technological tools have failed where a simple journal or diary would have also faced failure.

I have had success with one type of blog of sorts; a forum. I used to belong to a Delphi forum about the motorcycle that I used to own. I found that I couldn’t check the site enough and was always using it to learn from other riders of the Yamaha V-Star for the latest tips on working on my own bike. I guess as long as I have something to learn, I’m interested, but I really couldn’t care less about talking to others about my personal feelings or about the latest trends. I also don’t follow those types of issues in the current media so again, I don’t feel that I would get much use out of subscribing to a blog…I’m sure that will change if I find something that I’m interested in.

The RSS was slightly more useful to me. I get most of my information from two sources at the present: NPR and the John Stewart show. I kind of like the idea of being able to get snippets of the news when I have a few moments but I must admit that typically the stories that I end up listening to on NPR aren’t necessarily the ones that I would click on using the RSS. I don’t think that this will ever become my only source of gathering the news but again, it’s kind of fun on the fly.

Considering Dale’s Cone, I feel that, at its basic level, the blog would fit within the visual symbol level. I guess I’ve always considered the blog as a replacement for the newspaper column of the computer age. I can see after working on my project that people who use the blog to the full extent, such as linking videos or YouTube clips would use the next two lower levels and also include the dramatized experiences level. Just as the reading talked about how you can rarely make the case that anything is on a specific level and nothing else, I’m beginning to see much more possibility with blogs.

The RSS reader is a little more difficult for me to grasp. As with the basic blog, I think that this form of technology sits near the top of Dale’s cone. Aside from choosing which sites you would like to follow, the RSS really doesn’t allow you to “do” much. I’m sure that last comment would anger someone who uses RSS readers to their full extent, but from what I’ve seen it’s a lot of “find this and bring it to me”.

I teach 5th grade (6th grade next year) so I don’t know that I would use these much in the classroom, but I know that my wife, who teaches high school english, has used blogs in the past. The 10th grade unit covers a lot of information about the holocaust and our school has had discussions with students at other schools using the blog format. Someone last week talked about how using the online method allows people who don’t usually speak out in class to take the time necessary to post meaningful comments that add to the overall discussion. I think that using a blog would also allow this to happen.

The RSS reader might also be useful in class for people doing research papers. I’m sure that you could subscribe to web feeds that would fit within the parameters of your topic and allow the students to use them for sources. I suppose this technology would also be useful for a currents event class. I’m still having trouble finding useful things for a 5th/6th grade class.