Reaction Chapter 2- Wikis, Blogs, and Podcasts,......

Alas, I have my book thanks to a friends who is letting me borrow it. Unfortunately, by the time I got it last night I was too exhausted to read it. And, for those of you that read this before beginning your MovieMaker Project...follow her directions of making a script and organizing your pictures before trying to actually put a project together. It is not as difficult as I expected to use the software, but going in with a plan is helpful if you don't want to waste time. Speaking of waste, according to Chapter 2 I am wasting value reflective, educational space by just using my blog as a diary to record the days events. So here is the meat!

I thought Richardson did a great job of presenting Weblogs as an academic tool mainly because he gave so many real-life example. Many of the other classes I have taken at U of L have presented concepts and ideas (like differentiation techniques) but given no concrete way to execute them, thus this book is more helpful. I found it particularly useful that he provided examples of using blogs across the realm of education- one for a general school website, one for a Calculus class, one for an elementary class, blogs by teachers for teachers, and so on.

I also found his list of of what educational (or connective) blogging is and isn't very interesting on pg. 32. He says journaling or posting assignments are "not blogging" while "listing links with analysis" is "real blogging." I think having my literacy class participate in some blogging where the reflect on sites in the manner he suggests (and hopefully, with this teach them to be a hint of reflective). I tried it a little bit with journals and the stories/pictures from the New York Times Learning Network Site ( http://www.nytimes.com/learning/). However, my kids weren't very interesting in writing with pen and paper so perhaps having an audience would inspire them to improve their writing. I also think if I relayed to them the idea that writing for a blog is like a conversation (an idea that came from that fellow Kondrad Glogowski) and made it akin to texting back and forth some of my students might latch onto the idea. They certainly love to argue back and forth so perhaps I could tract it into a positive literary argument. Something to try anyway....

I just spoke of students as the audience of other students in my classroom and it made me think about the following my potential student bloggers would have. I don't feel like the author has taken into account (at least not at this point) that many students have very little support at home particularly in the realm of education. I feel it is highly unlikely that the students of parents that regularly let them skip school and fail classes would take interest in their blog or an email that generates updates about the classes latest assignments. I understand your blogs aren't supposed to be viewed only by parents but often, I would imagine this is the beginning of a following. Thoughts?