ASSIGNED READING - BLOG POST #3:

BLOG POST #3 - Week 4

Reaction to Chapters 5 and 8: RSS Feeds, Podcasting, Video and Screencasting, and Life Streaming

Chapter 5 in Richardson’s book: “RSS: The New Killer App for Educators”

“RSS is a powerful, flexible tool that I think will be changing our information gathering habits for years to come” (Richardson, 2010).

Currently, I think the most powerful tool that this chapter introduces and discusses is the RSS feed.  Prior to this class, I didn’t really even understand what a RSS feed was, let alone, what it did.  Now that I have set up my own feed in Feedly, I find myself reading and catching up on much more than I was able to find the time for in the past.  It is amazing how much time you can save by setting up one of these! 

Chapter 8 in Richardson’s Book: “Podcasting, Video and Screencasting, and Life Steaming”

“… Our ability to create and share multimedia in more and more transparent ways is only going to continue to expand… but publishing to an audience can be a great motivator for students” (Richardson, 2010).

I have had a little experience with Podcasting in the past with my students when I used to teach Third Grade.  We made a video podcast where the students wrote up what they were planning to say and recorded themselves reading their statements.  It was great for fluency!  I found that the students took a lot of pride in their portion of the group exercise so they would record and re-record a few times until they read their statement just right.   It really helps young students to hear what they reading in order understand if what they sound like.  Podcasting is a great tool to help students improve on fluency.

Reference: 

Richardson, W. (2010). Blogs, Wikis, Podcasts, and Other Powerful Web Tools for Classrooms. Thousand Oaks, California: Corwin.