Educators Guide to the Read/Write Web

Overview

Have I “furl”ed anything today? I was so confused when I read that sentence; but we will get to that in a minute. This article discusses how the worldwide web is changing and how as educators we should take advantage of it and encourage our students to do the same. Many students have blogs, which they use as an online diary to share with their friends. Teachers and students though are now learning that they can use blogs and other online tools to elaborate on thinking, reading and writing skills. Teachers can use blogs to make resources available and to create interactive portfolios that they can share with other students in the class and around the world.

Wiki is another tool that students can use; we have one in our Curriculum Development class for UAS. A wiki is something that anyone can access, change or just peruse for their own enjoyment. The thing about wiki’s are that anyone can change them. Anyone can access the information, make changes and put bogus information on the website. Many wiki’s do have safeguards that give some protection but it does take a while for the information to get fixed.
Another great tool brought out was RSS which I learned meant really simple syndication. RSS allows people to have access to a variety of feeds of information that are constantly updated and tailored to what they wanted. Teachers and students can use this tool to collect information and to distribute information to others. RSS feeds allow students access to the latest research.

Furl.net is something that was new to me. Furl and del.icio.us are sites that can save addresses and then can save a copy of the website in a folder that can be searched through later. Podcasting is becoming so common these days. People can create home movies, radio programs or anything else they really want to and share it on the web giving thousands of people instant access. Students can use podcasts to look at audio tours of museums, weekly news, programs pertaining to lessons and interviews. Basically if it can be recorded it is probably available by podcast.

The article points out that as teachers we need to decide if we need to adjust our curriculum to fit in with the way that information is transferred now. Students are now not only readers but they are writers; and they don’t commonly do either correctly. We need to make sure that when our students are writing in a blog or in the classroom that they are using the same grammatically correct structures. Almost everything on the web can be accessed by someone else; so it should be a good representation of our students. As teachers we should encourage students to use these on line resources by using them ourselves and letting them know how it can benefit them.

Cool Tidbits!
1) Yea I learned what Furl is
2) Teachers can use blogs to communicate with their students.
3) There is such a thing as classroom wiki
4) Students are “writing” even when they think they are just “blogging”
5) The idea of podcasting makes me wonder if, with all the banning done on our computers here at West, I could actually use them in my classroom.

My Thoughts:
I liked this article. I think of myself as technologically savvy but I didn’t know about some of the tools discussed in the article. I didn’t know what Furl was. I personally have never used a podcast or RSS feeds though I knew what they were. That makes me realize that I too have a little catching up to do when it comes to technology. On that note it also means that veteran teachers have A LOT of catching up to do in order to be where the students are. I don’t want technology to ever replace me; so I have to learn how to work with it a little better so that doesn’t happen.

Research Plan - Energy Conservation

I looked around my house and tried to figure out what "items" in my house used energy. And then I thought about the ones that maybe I don't really need. I came up with a few things that maybe I could live without. My husband and I sleep with a fan on at night. I wonder if we could instead move our bed over a little and utilize the cold air coming from outside as a source for cooled air as we sleep. We would also have to get used to sleeping without "white noise". The other thing that I may be able to live without is my hair dryer. If I showered at night instead of in the morning I could stop using my hair dryer and let nature do the work.
When I am not home I leave the radio on for my dog.....lame I know. I found that radios were not on many of the appliance lists so I decided not to use that one. The website that I found with many appliance lists is http://www.psnh.com/Residential/ReduceBill/Applianceusage.asp it has a pretty comprehensive list of appliances.
To do this assignment I will have to track the amount of time I use my hair dryer (I don't always use it) and how many hours a day my fan is on in my room. Then I can tally up the data and do a what if analysis for my family, extended family, all the students at West High etc.