I will admit that in the past I have not had the most favorable opinion of blogs. Part of this is due to my first exposure to the world of blogging, Xanga.com. I was introduced to it by my sister when I asked her what she was up to on her computer. She showed me her friend’s blog on Xanga, in which she let loose a tirade about the guy that broke up with her best friend for another girl. Then she showed me another friend’s blog in which she gave a detailed recount of her experiences shopping for a prom dress. She showed me a few more blogs and I walked away with the perception that blogs are little more than egocentric drivel devoid of any reading value.
However, in the past couple years I have warmed up a bit to blogging. I often find helpful educational resources and links located in blogs created by teachers reflecting on their classroom experiences. I have even started subscribing to blog updates of a few interesting speakers from education technology conferences that I have attended. But I still have had some issues with blogs: they are often filled with extra fluff, they are not consistently updated with new content, and they do not always contain topics that fit my interests. One solution to this is to be able to browse a large amount of blog content in a reasonably short amount of time. That’s where RSS feeds come in.
I must admit that up until this week’s lesson on RSS feeds, I have largely ignored this web technology. The only time I had set up an RSS feed prior to this week was when I created one for my Moodle demo course. Even after creating an RSS feed in my blog to display the latest update from a few of my favorite sites, I still wasn’t sold on the idea of using an RSS feed…but then I tried Sharp Reader. I really liked how I could have multiple feeds coming into one application organized neatly by folders. It was very easy to quickly scroll through all of the latest news stories and blog entries without having to click through a bunch of links. It kind of felt like reading through email; while I had a lot of feeds coming in, it was very easy to sort through them and delete ones that were irrelevant to my interests.
Now I will apply this to the classroom. Let’s say you have 150 students and you want each student to create a blog. Imagine the headaches of traveling to 150 blogs to check for updates. Used alone in this situation, blogs would not be feasible. However, using student-created blogs in conjunction with an RSS feed aggregator is what I believe to be an example of “computer imagination.” Compared to students handing in assignments written on paper, the blog and RSS combination has these advantages:
- Obviously it saves paper.
- Rather than requiring a teacher to keep track of a stack of papers, it is much easier to have writing assignments in blog form where they can be accessed from any location with Internet access. The RSS feed aggregator further simplifies this process by providing a tool to neatly sort these blog entries in a central location, thus eliminating the pains of hopping from one blog location to another.
- In addition to the teacher being able to read and respond to students’ blog entries, students have anytime-access to read and comment on any of the 150 student submissions. They are no longer limited to evaluating the papers of students in their same class section or restricted to the time limits of the class period. Students also have the option of using an RSS feed aggregator to make it easy to respond to topics and opinions that they are most passionate about.
- Students are not limited to words in their blogs. They can easily insert images, video, sound files, and links to web sites into their blogs, giving students the opportunity to create media-enhanced documents that touch on multiple parts of Dale’s Cone of Experience.
- When students can display their work to the world on the Internet, it gives them a greater sense of ownership and accomplishment.
To further expand on this idea, why not get even more “imaginative” and combine blogs and RSS feeds with a web page? You could design a web page to look like a newspaper with different sections being composed of stories fed in by RSS feeds. With students each being assigned a section, what they write in their blogs could automatically feed into the newspaper, creating a dynamic publication that updates automatically.
Another web technology that came up in this week’s lesson was wikis. I have always loved the concept of wikis and believe they are a great collaboration tool. Wikipedia is the best example of a widely used wiki, frequently appearing at the top of my results when I use a search engine. I find that it is a good starting point for researching a topic because it often provides a nice summary of the topic in addition to links to websites and publications that relate to the topic. While some might criticize the reliability of Wikipedia’s user-generated content, the fact that articles are required to cite references (otherwise other users will flag unsupported details) and face peer-scrutiny makes the vast majority of Wikipedia pages a trustworthy source of information.
On top of using Wikipedia, I have also used wikis for collaborative note-taking in my classes. When I was teaching high school geometry online, one of the wiki projects that I assigned required students, in pairs of two, to summarize one unit on a wiki page. Each group, assigned a different unit to summarize, took the theorems, postulates, and definitions that they felt were important and added them to their wiki page. Since my geometry course required students to write a lot of proofs—rationale for the steps in solving a problem—they found this reference, which they created themselves, to be invaluable. In addition to this example, I also helped an English teacher set up a wiki for students to collaborate on chapter summaries for a book. It was touted as their student-created version of Cliff Notes. Then there was a history teacher who used a fill-in the blank wiki to assist students in note-taking and encourage students to add additional web content that they found to be interesting. Wikis have many other uses as well, such as functioning as a web resource link exchange for teachers, an FAQ section for an online course, and a repository for notes and snippets from the Internet.
To answer the question of which parts of Dale’s cone of experience do you think each tool lends itself best to, I would say that the most obvious part that pertains to all of these would be verbal symbols. However, as the reading on the Cone of Experience stated, “we should remember, however, that media often interact with each other” (p.133). And “verbal symbols…are used together with every other material on the Cone, though they themselves are abstractions” (p.128). Instead of limiting a blog or wiki to a bunch of text that creates the challenge of not “falling asleep at your keyboard,” liven it up by creating a rich media experience that incorporates other parts of the Cone, such as visual symbols (maps, diagrams, charts); still pictures and radio (podcasts); television and motion pictures (Hulu clips, YouTube videos, CNN video broadcasts); and demonstrations (how-to videos, videos of lab experiments). The reading also explains that “the success of any instructional representation—any device on the Cone—will depend to a large degree on the imaginative involvement that it can produce in our pupils” (p.119). So get creative! Instead of just writing a summary of the events of the Civil War, have students use a blog to journal what they might experience from the perspective of a soldier fighting for the Confederacy. The possibilities of blogs and wikis are endless!
References:
Siegel, M. (2003). Falling asleep at your keyboard: The case for computer imagination. Unpublished manuscript.
Dale, E. (1969). Audiovisual methods in teaching. New York: Dryden Press. Chapter 4: The Cone of Experience
Additional resources:
RSS: A Quick Start Guide for Educators by Will Richardson
RSS: The Next Killer App For Education by Mary Harrsch
Weblogg-ed Wiki maintained by Will Richardson (great collection of resources on wikis, blogs, and other educational technologies)
Wiki Pedagogy by Renée Fountain (this is an extensive but reader-friendly intro to wikis)
I really liked your idea about students reading and commenting on each other's work, especially writing. Although I'm an elementary teacher, I sub in middle schools and can imagine how beneficial it would be for students to read the work of those outside of their writing period. I think you made a great point about eliminating the time constraints by using a blog. I also think that it would alleviate some of the pressures of reading someone's work right in front of them. If writing were posted during the editing stage, students would have time to think of rewriting suggestions to post for their classmates. Then there isn't as much pressure for the writer to take the ideas or the reader to fix all of the problems in the piece.
ReplyDeleteThank you for listing so many inspirational ideas about how to use blogs, RSS feeds, and wikis. I can't wait to set up a classroom newspaper, as you suggested. And I can absolutely imagine students using a class wiki to share notes, especially during a science or social studies inquiry project. I think that as students become more and more comfortable with technology, it is definitely our job to create meaningful ways for them to use it! (Especially if we want them to use it for more than blogs about prom dresses!)
Ok, you are light years ahead of me. I thought I did good when I got the Wiki to post the Amazon.com website, besides linking the pages. Wow!
ReplyDeleteThanks you also for sharing the many ideas to use blogs. I'm really in the dark about all this and just love the idea bout the classroom newspaper. I never would have thought of that. Great idea. I can create one for my Learning Resource Center, post it's address and keep everyone up to date on all the changes. Right now the Dean's office sends out group e-mails to all faculty and staff for me. Thanks.
Margie Springer
Much like you, haven't always had the most favorable opinion of the blog. It hasn't been until more recently that I started to see the educational application for the blog. You post an amazing idea for use of the blog and RSS feed working in conjunction. I believe many educators look at the use of a single technology and think of it as being overwhelming or too much work (ie. reading 150 student blogs) but forget that there are other technology tools that will make things so much easier (ie. RSS feeds). Using the blog and reader in such a way would make turning in papers and assignments much easier as well. Students could post an electronic copy of any work they have, the reader would be able to tell you when it was posted and you could get on to read it.
ReplyDeleteSeeing as you help out with tech-support in the school you could use a wiki or blog to post any technology related questions and answers for other staff members to look at when needed, although, seeing what you have done so far, I have a feeling you already are aware of this if not already doing so
The "Web newspaper" with all the different feeds and blog attached is a great idea. Don't know if I quite ready to attack that but is is an awesome idea, and something I might steal and maybe adjust for my classroom, have you copyrighted this yet?
ReplyDeleteI agree with you first statements about the blogs, if they are used for personal use you never know what you are going to get, but educationally they are could be a great tool. You have some amazing ideas, just wondering if the school you work at has the capablitities or if the students have internet access at home to do some of the things that we have done and you have talked about. We only have one lab that is hard to get time in, and only about 50% of our student body has computer access. Any ideas you have for how to combat this problem.
I can tell that you have a wealthy background in technology and a lot of insight to share about this field! Like you, I wasn't completely sold on the whole "blogging" idea when I was first introduced to them, but I have since discovered that a blog is what you (or the author) makes it. They can be either very bad/poor, or very good, well-written and interesting. After our readings for the week and reading postings from the peers in our course, I am beginning to think more "imaginatively" about blogging, wikis, RSS feeds and all.
ReplyDeleteI really appreciate your idea about using student blogs in conjunction with an RSS feeder. That would really make a teacher's job much easier. Being an English teacher, it would save me from having to cart folders of papers around with me, and from having to check multiple blog pages separately. I considered using a blog to keep my students updated about class information, assignments, and links to helpful sources, but even incorporating individual student blogs linked to an RSS would be great for individual assignments. What a great new way to grade papers :-)
My colleagues and I are always looking for new and interesting ways to get students to respond to each others' writing thoughtfully. Your idea about students responding to each other via blogging and not being restricted to responding only to their periods' class-mates or not being confined to the time limits within a class period is an idea that I will take to my colleagues in the upcoming school year.
Also, I had several students this past year who, after getting directions for an assignment or project, would talk me into allowing them to meet the learning objectives through video projects they would post to youtube, or even create mini-movie projects all inclusive with title sequences and rolling credits at the end. Students are craving more imaginative and technically savvy ways to learn and demonstrate their learning. Your idea about allowing students to add videos, images, sound files, and links to further add to points made in their writing via blogs would really grasp their interests along with meeting multiple levels of Dale's cone structure.
I would be very interested in hearing more about the fill in the blank wiki and how that works.
One more idea I took away from your post is a new way to produce a school-wide newsletter or newspage. You mentioned using the technology for a class, but I think having RSS feeds and blogs linked directly to a specific section of a webpage would also be a great idea for a school-wide newspaper.