Setting
up a blog was actually pretty easy.
Google Blogger made it easy to post the article assignment. However, my blog is super simple and I am not
trying to make a living based upon the look of it or its content. The RSS reader and feed has been an
unpleasant experience. I have no idea
how to put a feed into my blog but I can get it into Google Reader. I am working on it and hope to figure it out.
The
Cone article was lengthy but valid. I
think teachers are aware of the different learning experiences but have a hard
time fitting them into curriculum. So
many teachers work individually and I think if we worked together more that we
could provide many of these types of experiences.
The question of where blogs fall
into the Cone model is tricky. Simply
creating a blog could be a direct, purposeful experience. Students in the class had to learn by
creating a blog. I learned that it was
not too hard to create a simple blog and therefore the learning experience was
purposeful. The teacher told us where to
go and the software pretty much did the work for us. What you put on the blog may or may not put
you into a different level of the Cone model.
Movies are just one item that comes to mind that someone might place on
their blog. As stated in the article,
“Not all the original experience is there, but compression of the experience
provides advantages.” (pg.121)
The RSS
is a different story. I am really unsure
if I am doing the assignment right. I
read the history of the RSS and can see its usefulness. Clicking on feeds lets one browse news
article in a much more efficient way than searching the entire web site on a
regular basis. That much I can
tell. I subscribed to a local news
station and thought it was really cool how I could peruse the news headlines
without clicking on a multiple links and taking the time to travel to the web
site constantly. Again, this experience
was more direct and purposeful. However,
due to all of the symbols involved it could be a symbolic experience. The orange RSS button is a unique symbol that
has meaning.
A blog
could be useful in the classroom. One
advantage that a blog has is that it can be accessed from anywhere. To
answer Postman, the ability to put videos on a blog for students to view would
save a lot of lost learning/instructional time.
I show videos for a purpose and there is almost always an assignment to
accompany a video. When a student is
absent, the work rarely gets made up because I don’t have time to reshow it in
class. If I could place it in my blog
they could easily view it in their credit recovery class or for some students
at home. I might actually try this. However, I know I would have to create a new
blog as my district does not allow Google Blogger. When I asked why I was told that they could
not control the blogs that student access so they said I could not use it at
school as it was specifically blocked. Teachers in my districts do have blogs so I
would just have to find out what they use.
I am not sure if my videos would be blocked content or not. To be imaginative, I might have my students
post reviews on books in the classroom to spark student interest. We could add how many stars out of five, what
type of person should read the book, etc. and then students could search the
blog for this material.
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