Richardson - Chapter 5 (aka...the revolution)

I opened my book and saw that chapter 5 was all about RSS feeds. Big deal, thinks me. I just recently set up an RSS feed for my personal blogs that I like to watch, and for the past few days, I've had a good time watching my interests be organized and presented to me. It's nice.

After reading chapter 5, however, I feel like I've been hit with a brick. The ideas presented are so fantastic and would change EVERYTHING should they be integrated into schools. My mind started automatically reeling about the possibilities. These are the things that ran through my head:

1) Our school district frowns upon student e-communication. Students are not supposed to have their cell phones out during school. Nor are they supposed to check emails or even pass notes. Social interaction sites like Facebook and YouTube are blocked. BUT (and this is a big but) blogs are not blocked. I am not sure why, and I haven't questioned it for fear of the tech department blocking blogs. I am able to check blogs of all types through our school internet. I can even post messages. So much for blocking communication.

2) Because of the blogs being available, I know that my students would have access to them. For now.

3) If students were able to have their own blogs to use for class assignments and interactions, I'd be incorporating all kinds of 21st century learner traits, and the students would enjoy their assignments more.

4) The major concern with each student having their own blog would be the monitoring for appropriate content, but according to chapter 5, I could set up an RSS feed that would let me monitor the content ebb and flow.

5) The RSS feed would also make grading so much more easier. The aggregator would let me know if a post had not been made or if something were ready for assessment.

6) My students do research not only in my class but in most of their classes. An abundance of time is wasted upon finding information sources. An RSS feed set up for a particular kind of informaiton would virtually nullify this problem.

So many good things! I am so excited to set this up for my fall classes!