Thing 4

It's easy to feel overwhelmed by the sheer volume of blogs out there - how do you handle information overload and how do you think RSS might help with that?

To be frank, sometimes I deal with information overload by simply hitting the DELETE button. I assume that if something is really important, it will be sent to me again. However, in our media saturated world, information overload is pretty typical. Being able to organize information is important and it looks like RSS feeds will allow information to come in and be sorted into folders similar to the way we would like our students to organize their notebooks/binders.

Thing 3

How might you use a blog with students? How might they respond to a blog assignment? What concerns about blogging with students do you have? How might you use a blog for other educational purposes (other than with students)?

In our media literacy class, students have created blogs as part of our magazine unit and our celebrity/hero unit. We have an English teacher in our building who has students do reader's responses to the novels they read through blogging. Some students write a lot, some barely write what's required. My concern about blogging, is that because it is computer based, and CAN be informal, students often use what I call "instant messaging/texting" sentence structure and spelling. It's important to instruct students that even though they are writing a blog, there is still the potential for a formal audience, thus formal language must be used. Otherwise, we'll get messages that include phrases like, "idk, my bff Jill?" :-)

I'd like to see blogs developed for media literacy and media production teachers to share ideas and concerns regarding curriculum. This would provide yet another venue for teachers to find others with similar interests as well as people who might be able to share skills.

Thing 1 and Thing 2

Why are you participating in 23 Things? What do you hope to learn? What new insights did you have during Thing 1? How does writing on the Internet, knowing anyone could read it, change how you write or feel about writing?

I am participating in 23 Things because I like using technology in my classroom. I teach media literacy, media production and video production. Using technology on a daily basis is common for me. Unfortunately, having the kids know more than me is also common. I'd like to catch up to the kids. My students just finished podcasting about the presidential candidates and one of the candidate's issues. The kids just loved this assignment and each student learned SOMETHING about either Barack Obama or John McCain. The choice of candidate and issue was totally theirs. The major insight I had was that with the inclusion of technology in a somewhat standard assignment made the assignment very exciting for all.

Writing on the internet, knowing anyone could read it does not change how I feel about what I write or about writing in general. This is because I don't hide behind a computer screen to deliver my message whether they are positive messages or negative messages. I think that there are some people who don't understand the problems with some of their internet communication and use it as a replacement for face-to-face communication. I can truly say, that anything I've ever published on the internet is something that I would not hesitate saying to someone in person. Our students, on the other hand, do not have this level of maturity and frequently get themselves in trouble with what they post. This includes revealing far too personal information on their Myspace accounts to cyberbullying, to uploading videos of themselves. We need to educate our students about the potential risks they face (like not being hired for a job, or being admitted to a college) because of their internet use.