Chapters 3, 5, & 7

Chapter Three was all about blogging. How to get started and step by step instructions on how to use blogger.com. The very beginning of the chapter said a lot about Will Richardson's attitude concerning the new technology. He states very early in the chapter (in the second paragraph) "to blog" if you plan on using blogs as a tool. I have always felt the best way to learn something is to do it. Show me once, then let me play around with it a while. eventually, I will get it. Plus, it makes things translate a lot better if you know how to do it and you actually do it. Students can see if you know what you are talking about. Especially in areas of technology because for the most part, they have grown up with it, they are the home team.

Chapter Five was, for me at least, an introduction to RSS (Real Simple Syndication). I had never before heard of such a thing (I guess that is why I am in this class). The chapter goes through in pretty good detail of what an RSS is and how to set one up. I am constantly scaning the Internet looking for certain news stories and information. I will be setting myself up an RSS account in short order because I really see the value in both my personal life as well as in my professional life of having the information delivered to you.

Chapter Seven was about Flickr. I had heard of Flickr (my family actually uses Shutterfly. Personally, I had never used Flickr until we did the class project. As with the previous two chapters, information about how to use Flickr was given as well as classroom applications. Having used Flickr in an actual classroom, I can definitely see the uses for such technology. We created and displayed our class Flickr project in under an hour. Thus, it is something that has ease of use.

I really like the fact that the book is stressing low or no cost technology. With todays budget concerns, it is great to know that these types of aides are out there. This gives us the power to bring the classroom into the Twenty First Century.