Week 3: Personalizing the Internet

Week 2 is already complete and it looks like you have been quite successful getting your blogs up and running. During the first couple of weeks its been difficult to for me, and probably for you, to feel like you are part of a class community when you aren't meeting face-to-face or writing in discussion forums. I've decided to switch weeks 3 & 4 from the syllabus so that we can start communicating with each other more efficiently.

I hope you've noticed the new "What We're Blogging About" widget in the right sidebar this past week. This is a little tool that I've set up that monitors all of your blogs and any time you create a new post, it adds a link to it at the top. That's pretty cool because now instead of looking through each blog for new content, new content comes to us in a single convenient space. That's the theme for this week.

By the way, I have posted your grades in ANGEL for this past week. It is really the only time I use ANGEL. Let me know if you have any questions on them.

Here is your agenda for the week of January 21st. Please have all of the items completed by Saturday night, January 26th:

1. Watch the VoiceThread on Personalizing the Internet.
2. Complete the following reading:
1. Educause. (2007, April). 7 things you should know about RSS. Educause Learning Initiatives. Retrieved January 17, 2007 from http://www.educause.edu/ir/library/pdf/ELI7024.pdf
3. Set up a Google Reader Account.
   
1. Watch this Jing clip on how to add your classmates blogs to your reader account.
2. Create a new folder in your Reader Account where you subscribe to all of your classmates' blog. You might even want to subscribe to this blog as well.
4. For your Weekly Gallery Project, do ONE of the following:
1. Pick a topic you can see yourself teaching. Your goal will be to supplement whatever materials you have inside the class with the freshest content possible. Therefore, look for web pages specifically about your topic. Each page or blog, though, will need to have an RSS feed on them. Create a new folder in your Reader account in which you subscribe to at least 3 RSS feeds about your topic. Make this folder public and add it as a widget to your blog. I've included a Jing video below on how to do this.
2. Imagine that you have parents asking for information about a certain topic (In my experience, this could be things like test-taking and study strategies, behavioral strategies, enrichment activities, etc. It usually starts with parents saying . . . "Hey, can you recommend . . .?" or "Where could I learn more about . . .?" Your task will be to look for web pages specifically about the topic you've chosen. Each page or blog, though, will need to have an RSS feed on them. Create a new folder in your Reader account in which you subscribe to at least 3 RSS feeds about your topic. Make this folder public and add it as a widget to your blog.
   
3. As educators and advocates of lifelong learning, we are constantly seeking out new ideas and information to improve our teaching. Think about an area you want to focus on for development. Your task will be to look for web pages specifically about the area you've chosen for professional development. Each page or blog, though, will need to have an RSS feed on them. Create a new folder in your Reader account in which you subscribe to at least 3 RSS feeds about your topic. Make this folder public and add it as a widget to your blog.
4. Here is a link to the Jing video that will show you how to make your folder public and add it as a widget to your blog.
5. On your blog, please create a post in which you talk about:
1. Which of the three Gallery Projects you decided on and why. Be sure to provide us with enough context to so that we can understand the resources you have linked to. Please also create an embedded link to the public page url for your project (see the Jing video) as well as linking the permalink of the post to the Wiki Gallery (the Aggregator column please).
   
2. Please also write about how you might use RSS feeds in your future teaching. You might want to think about each of the three categories above-- for student learning, for communicating with parents, and for professional development.
6. Play with iGoogle and Google Alerts. Personally, I thought it was pretty neat that I could add Pac-Man into my Google Search Page!

Because we've set up the aggregators (Reader), we can now communicate with each other by leaving posts on our own blogs. Let's try to use this method for communicating with each other. Here is what I suggest. If you have a question about something for this week, Begin the title of your post with "HELP:" to alert each of us about your need. Also, tag it with "cep416help." Whomever reads the post first can then try to offer assistance by leaving a comment on the post. If you want to share something with the group, start your title with "Comment:" and tag it with "cep416comment. "

Best of luck this week. Please don't hesitate to ask the group for help.

Cheers,

Joe