I find blogs to be very useful. I have set up a couple of blogs so that my
family and friends in Michigan could see what was going on in my life out here
in Washington, D.C. However, I don’t
keep up with my blogs like I should. The
biggest reason I find blogs to be useful is not so much for me to write down my
thoughts, but rather to see what other people have to say. For example, one blog that I follow on a
daily basis is a recipe blog. Another
blog I follow is my cousin’s. She
created the blog to keep our family updated on her son who was born very
prematurely. Blogs are a great way to
keep in touch with people or just follow others’ musings.
My
experience with the RSS reader was, at first, quite frustrating. I had a hard time figuring out how to set one
up. However, I soon realized I was
making it seem harder than it actually was.
I had set up a RSS reader and didn’t even realize it! Once I had it set up and figured out how to
subscribe to feeds, I found it to be quite easy and user friendly. I think it will make it much easier for me to
follow the blogs and websites I check on a daily basis. I will no longer have to go to many different
websites! Instead, I can simply log onto
my RSS reader and check for any updates.
However, a few of the sites that I frequent did not seem to have feeds
that I could subscribe to.
At
first, I thought Dale’s Cone was quite confusing, but after carefully reading
about each part it became a little clearer.
I think that blogs are an example of exhibits. Dale describes exhibits as one for
“spectators” and that there isn’t much involvement (if any) from the
spectator. A blog is a website that
people can write about their life or a certain topic (i.e., recipes). No one except for the author usually has
input in what is said on the blog. The
only way they may have any involvement is by commenting on a post. I think that a RSS reader is an example of a
contrived experience. Dale claims that a
contrived experience “meaningfully summarizes and condenses a great deal of
specific information. By using a RSS
reader, one does not need to visit many different websites and sift through
information to find updates. Instead,
they can use a RSS reader to get all of the updates from many feeds on just one
website.
One imaginative
educational use of a blog would be me having a blog for my classroom. It would be most helpful to my students’
parents; however, anyone could look at it.
Right now, I send home a weekly newsletter to my students’ parents via
e-mail. This newsletter is sent out on
Friday evenings. A blog, however, could
be seen at anytime. They could see
pictures from the class or receive more updates than they would from the
newsletter. A blog can be referred back
to at anytime as well. Each newsletter
is only sent out once and unless saved in their e-mail, they cannot refer back
to it. One imaginative educational use
of a RSS reader could be for teachers sharing information. With all of the great lesson plans out there,
searching for them is very time consuming.
Many teachers now are creating blogs to share lesson plans with other
teachers. By using a RSS reader, one can
see updates from many teachers and, therefore, always staying up-to-date with
lesson plans. It makes it much easier to
receive these updates and websites can never be lost or forgotten because, once
subscribed to that feed, it is kept until deleted by the user.
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