Thing 5a

No offense Caroline, but one frustration many of the teachers I work with and interns/student teachers I have had in the past have had was that You Tube is blocked in the classroom. In our past reading series, there was a very interesting story about the life of Lou Gehreg. Each year my students would become so interested in him and his life -- they would read other books, research, etc. and I would look for videos of his famous speech (the full speech was quoted in the story). The only videos I could find were on You Tube. This same cycle would happen in every subject in many classrooms in 4th grade.
While looking for blogs today, I came upon a blog, 21centuryedtech, that discussed safe ways to view You Tube videos. http://21centuryedtech.wordpress.com/2009/09/26/you-tube-in-the-classroom-ways-you-can-say-yes/. I thought it was very interesting that he made sure to go over certain steps you need to go through before using any of these sites:

Bringing YouTube into the classroom requires a teacher to carefully search, screen, and find videos that compliment learning objectives . Once the video is found it must be properly incorporated in the unit of study. Once these key points have been satisfied, it is time to investigate ways to make the video viewable in the educational setting.

I look forward to going back to school after Fall Break and try the sites he suggests. This could add a new world of videos, clips, etc. to my students' learning.

Thing 3

This "thing" was right up my alley. I started reading blogs and using RSS feeds about 2 years ago. The bad part of it was that I could only follow 7-8 at a time because I used the bookmark toolbar in Forefox to keep up with them. That was as many as I could fit across my screen. My husband kept at me about starting a reader, but I "knew" what was best for me.

I have to say I LLLOOOVVVVEEE using Google Reader!!! I am able to keep up with my sports blogs, gossip blogs, and news blogs, along with my new edublogs. I even found "Feedly" on Firefox. It is an add-on that imports your info from Google Reader -- more of a newspaper or magazine style. I am one of those people Caroline talked about that, if overwhelmed, will quit -- this will help. I recommend this to anyone that uses Firefox.

Thing 2

I have noticed that there seems to be 2 types of blogging -- blogging for information, such as Vicki Davis', http://coolcatteacher.blogspot.com/2007/01/spies-like-us.html, or blogging to share or to communicate, such as Mrs. Edmison's class blog http://blog.woodward.edu/ps_edmison/?p=281.

Blogging for information seems to be in the same genre as newspapers and the informational writing we teach our children. It helps teach things that we need to know or they think we need to know. It is written in a more formal voice than the other type of blogging that I have noted. In the educational world, this would be used more for professional purposes of the teacher and students than for entertainment or for recreational reading.

Blogging to share or to communicate would be compared to a friendly letter or, in more recent times, to email only blogging is in the public eye. The writing style is much more informal and easy to read. This would be the style that would easily move towards "conversations" with comments. This type of blogging is the type I began enjoying several years ago.

Blogging can definitely be educational. Students are able to share what they have learned, read what others have learned, or comment on what they have read (yeah for response to "literature"). Like I tell my students each year, we learn so much more about what we read when we think about it and then write about it -- whether it be asking questions about it, giving our opinion about it, or comparing it to something else we have read. Blogging is great for that!

On a personal note, I am not sure blogging is for me as a writer. As a person who can be pretty shy, blogging is very public and "out there". I have been working at this "thing" for the last 2 weeks and have had a very hard time sorting my feelings about blogs. This is something I will need to work on as the weeks go on.