RSS Activity

The sites I am following consist of a wide diverse range. The week before you asked us to set up an RSS feeder, I had to set one up for my writing for mass communication class. This class asked that I following three specific blogs. So, part of my 10 that you requested we follow are those three from my other class. Those three deal with news that pertain to UF and writing and editing rules and tips. The other blogs that I searched were blogs about teaching abroad, or studying abroad. I also found a really interesting blog about Hawaii. I basically chose these sites because of interest. I would like to teach geography, so that was my initial search topic. If I am going to teach geography I might as well know about all the places that I am teaching. What I found challenging about this activity was finding 10 sites. It was easy to find a few sites that I was interested in but after about five, it became pretty difficult. I also think that it is challenging to stay updated on 10 blogs, that is a lot of information for just one day aside from all the other information that a student has to research, or take in that deal with other classes. On the other hand, the RSS reader makes it easy to access information as opposed to having to run a Google search for a particular article. As a teacher, I feel that I the feed reader can be used in a classroom first off by use of current events. Current events are typically an assignment give to students in the upper elementary school or middle school level. One of the first three blogs that I started to follow is a great source for news because the writer is a reporter for Gainesville. Blogs can also be used in a classroom by being the base of a story idea or project. It also can relate real life to what is being taught. For example, if I was teaching about the culture in Italy, I could pull up a blog that I am subscribed to and my students could read about whatever this Italian blogger writes. I don’t really care much for the RSS reader, I think it just creates one make location and spot for people to have to check or keep up with on a daily basis. I guess what I would like to know is where did RSS come from and why did it all of a sudden become so popular? Was it because of the high demand for blogging in the media world?

Access

First of all I would just like to point out that after reading these articles, I logged onto my Facebook just to see if I had any new notifications or if there were any new interesting status updates. But anyways, how does socioeconomic status affect access to the Internet and social media? Hmm.. the way I see it, is there is a definite age group difference. Those who are in middle school typically use MySpace. Highschool is a mixed of MySpace and Facebook, college students just only use Facebook and won't dare give out there "immature" MySpace link. Twitter and Linkedin, however, become a bit of a toss-up between ages. With my own personal use of Twitter I find that the youngest age group of users are college students. Many professionals, company's, and celebrities use Twitter. Linkedin is what I have the least knowledge about. I believe it is just for a business aspect and used solely for networking. I do believe that one's socioeconomic status affects their access to the Internet and social media because for one, if you do not have access then you won't have any of these social networks. And typically, those who are in college or have college degrees tend to have or make more money than those who are not in college. It even makes sense for middle-schoolers, who have no income. Those kids have no business using something like Linkedin or following someone like CNN because they cannot comprehend that information just yet. This access to the Internet and social media has just recently become extremely important. One of the articles said its access enhances local economies, manages natural resources and improves access to education and health services. I agree with these statements because anyone can type in a Google search and learn something new within 5 minutes. Students who do not have internet access can be supported by the use of libraries in schools or even public libraries or computers within the classrooms. Just as internet access and social media are increasing around us, classrooms and schools are enhancing too so even if there is not access at a students home the likelihood of that student accessing internet in school is very high.

Participatory Culture--The New Literacy

The participatory culture article brought up a very interesting point that I did not consider until I read about it: the participation gap. The participation gap is the represents the unequal access to these online media skills that will "prepare youth for" for the days of tomorrow. The networked student video discussed that students or everyone actually must become skilled in media in order to succeed in the world, just as the article discussed but the video definitely left out the gap between those who have a means of access and those who do not. After both reading the article and watching the video I feel that this new form of media allows for more in-dependency to be placed on students. Their creatively is measured instead of their facts and students are trusted more to allow their brains to work on their own and form a new idea or at least a path to a new idea by their own means of collaboration. Even though a student acts independently, on these social networks one interacts with hundreds of thousands of people (or at least has the opportunity to). Which leads to what I believe will be an on-going debate for the upcoming years... Is the "New Media Culture" helpful or harmful to Americas youth? The article discusses that new media will allow for individuals to multitask and be able to collaborate better with people from diverse backgrounds(something that the video doesn't discuss). I don't know if I agree or disagree. I don't know if new media is helping society become united through these networks or creating barriers among people on a personal face-to-face level. I may have gone off on my own tangent about new media.. but I think I at least answered the question somewhat? I hope "/

I feel like the only student experience that I can see that would be similar are those from this class. It is really the only class that allows for students to be hands on with technology and to really give them the freedom to almost teach themselves by allowing for them to learn the ends and outs of the online websites. I don't remember if it was the article or the video but one talked about a project with other students working all online and it reminded me of the Art Show that will be put on at the end of the semester. The other experience that I can relate these two sources to is my writing for mass media class. This class literally teaches students about all the forms of mass media.. and why does it do that? Well obviously because it is what is needed to get by in the business world of today's society.

Critical Thinking and Problem Solving

1. Bloom's Taxonomy represents the process of learning, without completing the first step one cannot move forward to the next step. The chart listed describes learning as a process of: Knowledge -> Comprehension -> Application -> Analysis -> Synthesis -> Evaluation
Bloom's representation is slightly different in word choice yet basically measures the same thing. It looks like this: Remembering -> Understanding -> Applying -> Analyzing -> Evaluating -> Creating

Learning Objective: The student will write a compound sentence using conjunctions.

Knowledge: The student will be asked what he/she knows about conjunctions.

Comprehension: The student will be told what a conjunction is and how to spot them out in sentences.

Application: The student will create simple sentences using conjunctions.

Analysis: The students will share their sentences with each other and decide whether the use of a conjunction was proper or not.

Synthesis: The students can collaborate what they have learned and form paragraphs using sentences with conjunctions.

Evaluation: The student will evaluate his/her paragraph with past paragraphs they have written without conjunctions and then evaluate their paragraphs with other classmates.

2. I do not believe that the students were less capable than Paul assumed them to be. I feel that the students had what they believed to be prior knowledge that led them to believe that "summer temperatures were warmer than winter temperatures because the earth was closer to the sun in the summer". So when Paul emphasized "that summers were hotter than winters because of the changes in the angle of the earth and the sun" the students simply skimmed over his statements because they believed what they had already thought. Then when the students had to write about it in essay form is was harder for them to remember which was the false reasoning and which was the true reasoning. I think Paul probably just lectured the students, and therefore put the blame on his teaching techniques. I believe that had it been a multiple choice question, it may have been a little easier for students to differentiate simple because the two options would be stated as opposed to having to come up with ones own wording. If a lab, or an example, was given to physically show the students the differences would help students to learn the material and do better on answering the question next year.