Thursday, January 20, 2011

Setting up and Using Blogs and RSS Readers



             Establishing a blog through Blogger was much easier than I anticipated. I liked the options for layout, but wish there were more. If I were to have students develop a blog, I can see them spending too much time fussing over things like background colors, layouts, etc. Working with Google’s RSS Reader was a bit more of a challenge for me. I found no other way to subscribe to blogs other than copying and pasting URLs into the window for “Add a Subscription.” I found that using a Mac and Safari as my browser I had to do things a bit differently. In the end, I was glad for the confusion. Thanks to a link Dr. Horvitz sent me in response to a question, I learned how to work with Safari to subscribe to feeds. I now have Google Reader and a folder collecting feeds attached to my browser. A bit of overkill, but I like learning all I can about my Mac as it is still new to me and a big switch from using a PC.

            When considering The Cone of Experience and where on this spectrum blogs and RSS readers fall, I think it may depend upon the perspective we take. If, for example, we are speaking of the writer of the blog, then I think that just about all levels of the Cone can apply. The blogger usually has at least one, or a combination, of the types of experiences on the Cone in order to have a topic to blog about. However, if you are the one reading the blog, then I would say that the verbal symbols part of the Cone applies most often. Perhaps links to video and audio clips are a part of the blog. If that is the case, then more parts of the Cone would apply beyond the contact with the printed words. As for RSS readers, they allow us to access blogs, which are mainly written words, so verbal symbols would be the main part involved with this tool. With so many facets to content on the Internet that could be subscribed to, I am sure that other parts of the Cone could be involved. I look forward to reading the views of my classmates on this topic.

            Yes, kids can get up in front of a class and tell their peers and teacher of some experience, but blogs do the same thing plus a lot more.  A student’s audience is much broader than the children inside the classroom. Blogging causes a purposeful reflection of an experience or opinion and provides an authentic reason for others to write in response to the blogger’s posts. I believe that blogs provide a greater sense of collaboration with faster and more varied feedback than a traditional oral presentation or pen and paper essay. When Seigel was referring to WisdomTools Scenarios TM, he pointed out that, “The purpose of these activities is to help the learner reflect on the story’s relevance and contribute to it. Multiple points of view are discovered and new insights are learned through these asynchronous exchanges.” I believe that creating, reading, and responding to blogs do much the same thing. RSS readers simply provide us the means to stay current with the sites we wish to view on a regular basis and keep track of them. RSS feeds and readers are essential to keeping up with Postman’s “glut” of information.

1 comment:

  1. Shelby,
    I was wondering the same thing you were about our RSS feeds and credit. That was part of my motivation for creating the blog roll.

    If you are interested it is under the design feature.

    ReplyDelete