I really enjoyed making a blog! Of course, it took me a bit to get the hang of it. I was that person questioned WHY people did blogs. I mean do people REALLY want to hear all the details about a family vacation or read about their thoughts and feelings? The more I played and viewed various blogs I realized the value behind a blog. I realized that blogs allow your history to be documented somewhere. Pictures are great visual documentations of events, but words are powerful. The combination of the two pictures and words allows you and others to re-visit memorable occasions or moments. When I have a little more time on my hands, I would love to create another blog all about my family!
RSS Reader was more of a challenge to me. I found myself in moments of frustration. In the end, when I successfully completed the task I was very proud of myself. I realized that I actually was excited that I had figured it out. I loved that fact that I no longer have to go to a different location to see our classmate’s posts. I also really liked how I was updated about various topics of interest. I definitely think the blogging and RSS Reader could become an addictive activity for me!
I felt the reading of, “The Cone of Experience” by Edgar Dale, was very repetitious. Each part of the cone was slightly different, but yet tied into the previous level. I did like that Dale did point the fact out several times that the levels do overlap. With that said, it was hard for me to answer the question of where each too (blog, RSS) lends itself best to. Dale stated, “ the Cone of Experience is not to be looked on as a rigid, mechanically exact device. One of its most important attributes is its value as a reminder-a memory aid that makes us aware of the interrelationships of all learning experiences.” These two statements really helped me in making my own statement on where I think blogs and RSS Readers lend themselves best to. I think Blogs and RSS Readers lie somewhere (depending what is created in both the blog and what is retrieved in RSS Readers) between Exhibits, Recordings Radio Still pictures, and Visual Symbols. If there are pictures placed on the blog it is something “seen by spectators”(Dale 120). If the RSS Reader was a news feed from CNN it would fit in the Recordings. It would be creating a scene in our minds of history in the making. There is no need for a big explanation of how Blogs and RSS Readers fit in the Visual Symbols part of the cone. Everything on the computer is a visual symbol. There were many visual symbols used in the process of creating a blog. You needed to know and understand what the symbols represented in order to know how to create and control that portion. Overall, because technology is so diverse and rapidly changing I still feel that it is hard to place these 2 tools in specific parts of the cone. Dale stated, “Whether we hold a demonstration or organize a study trip or play a recording, we should remember that students do not learn merely by looking: they learn by becoming creatively involved.” This I do feel is an important piece to remember. Students NEED to be creatively involved just like I needed to figure out how to put the blog and RSS Reader together myself. If someone had just told me what buttons to push I don’t think it would have been as meaningful.
I am sure that with just the input of our classmates that we would create a whole list of “imaginative” educational uses for a blog and RSS. One “imaginative” educational use I would want to use it for students to have information right at their fingertips. If there were notes handed out in class I could post them to the blog so they could see them later that night. If parents wanted access to the classroom expectations it would be posted to the blog. If I wanted to show links that could help students practice various skills I could post that on my blog and they would be able to challenge their knowledge. I would use the RSS as a resource for students to learn how certain topics connect to our everyday lives by placing updates from various sites that are related to what we are studying. I do feel like both of these tools could really help teacher, student, and parent connection and also allow students to be responsible for pushing themselves to a higher level.
