Thing 5

I feel like I can grasp the concept of RSS, but I had a lot of difficulties working with it the ways described in the videos. I had to copy the URLs for both weblogg-ed.com and for the 2cents blog. When I follwed the directions in the video for the 2cents blog I never saw the 'coded' page. I do like the Bloglines bookmarklet. Going back to the RSS concept, are educators reading the numerous posts made on their favorite blogs daily? It seems impossible. I imagine they are just looking for the posts that most fit their needs and interests. Still seems like a lot of time that will be spent on blogs when very little time is left at the end of a school day.

The RSS does seem like it will be handy for keeping track of sites and blogs I look at in my personal life and for my professional development and use. I plan to take a few days to simply monitor the few sites I have subscribed to and continue looking for other blogs that might be of interest to me or to others.

Thing 4

There are so many blogs out there and I do feel overwhelmed! I feel overwhelmed looking for blogs that will be most useful and being that I do not experience with them I don't really have a clear idea of how I can best critique all that is out there.

RSS does seem like it can help in managing the information that can be coming into the blogs I will monitor and participate with, but I feel like it will be almost impossible to keep up with even one or two blogs. Are there filters for identifying posts that might be of the most interest to me? That is something I am going to look for Bloglines and on GoogleReader. Of course just being able to monitor blogs of interest in one place does seem like it can save a lot of time.

I still am having a difficult time defining what my blog will be for me.

Thing 3

I continue seeing how many ways blogs can be used in my classroom and this is exciting. I am now following several blogs...no notification of activity yet on those blogs and I'm not sure what following these blogs will mean for me. However, as I look at blogs and read about how blogs can be used, I feel very unsure of how I set up my blog to have these functions. Also, when I see things like 'use a blog to...' repeated several times, does that mean that you have several blogs for each purpose???



I can see using a blog to present images from Spanish-speaking countries to my students for their comments on cultural points. I also think a blog would allow for journaling opportunities for my students. I could also use the blog to continue dialogue with students on classwork outside of the classroom. These are just a few things I've thought of so far. I have also seen a lot of comments about using the blog for some basic classroom needs like homework, communication with parents, and due dates. I don't see me using it in this capacity so much because our grading/attendance program has many functions for classroom needs.

I've put some things on my blog to play around with some functions and it is fun! So as I continue through this I hope to try out some other functions.

Practice Activity

¿Cómo es el mercado?

Thing 1 and Thing 2

My participation in 23 Things was motivated by two things. First, I would like to gain more knowledge in the technology that is out there. I would like to be able to find new ways to convey information to my students and new ways for them to share information with me. Secondly, I do need continue getting credits for my certification. The media specialist at my school said that this would be a good avenue to at least become proficient at blogging, so here I am.

My goal here is not only learn how to use a blog, but to also generate some ideas to actually utilize it in my classroom. After watching the video and reading the article I've become interested in learning how to utilize wikis and podcasts in my classroom too. As I stated in my post after Thing 1 and 2, I really am not comfortable with technology at this point and I have very few ideas on how to incorporate technology into my classroom, but I am excited to learn.

After watching the video and reading the article in Thing 1, I began thinking about how exciting a working environment could be in my school. I have to admit though, that after the excitement came thoughts of all the reasons why I might not see this perfect world in my school. There clearly has to be a staff and administration interested in increasing technology use for students and themselves. We also need some serious support. But, I'm not going to let those thoughts hold me back at this point.

I have to say I am NOT comfortable writing on a blog with the thought that anyone can read it. I I guess I'm still not comfortable with even having a Facebook page and that is only for friends. I think this experience will certainly help me gap the bridge between my students openness with the world and my preference to not be 'out there'.

One question about writing on the blog, how do you get characters needed for foreign language?? If I intend to utilize this in my classroom, I will need to be able to write using accent marks, upside down exclamation and question marks.

Ready to start Thing 3.

Late Start

So I've gotten off to a bit of a late start. Luckily, I have an excellent reason...I was in Peru with 13 students. What an adventure.