Blogs & Webpages

If you asked a couple of years ago what the difference between a blog and web-page is I may have more of a concise answer. These days the lines are blurred somewhat due to the staggering amount of mainstream blogs out there. Is a news website like http://news.bbc.co.uk a blog? It is date stamped and newer additions to the front-page push to the top. Just like a blog. When describing a blog to Grade 5 students we discuss how a blog is like an online journal, in essence. This is true in relation to what our Grade 5 students are going to be doing but marking the difference between blogs and web-pages based on the criteria of "journal-like entries" won't be enough anymore. I would also add the possible criteria of individual viewpoints a blog may have as compared to a generic journalistic viewpoint of a web-page. But, again, it's not that simple anymore!

RSS Page Reflection

<- My Google Reader list of blogs (Click on pic to the left to make bigger!) I've been an avid subscriber to Educational (and other) blogs for a couple of years now. It's been a love-hate relationship at times. I will always check my Google Reader at least once a day to keep on top of new posts. When I go on holiday or I am internet-less for a number of days the new post updates can be overwhelming and sometimes nullifies the advantages of subscribing to the blogs. Blogs will just get "marked as read" in a blink of an eye.
As I'm in Asia a lot of the American based blogs will update while I'm asleep and a whole list of updates are waiting for me in the morning! This can be a struggle to read in any depth while rubbing my eyes sleepily. I have taken a draconian method of going over my blogs I subscribe to every couple of months and culling the ones I tend to find are either overloaded with information every day or have veered off the reason why I subscribed in the first place.
But, as you can see from looking at my list of blogs I subscribe to, the numbers steadily increase anyway as I stumble upon more interesting and informative blogs. It's all about making sure the information that pops up doesn't outweigh the value I'm supposed to gain from subscribing to blogs. Next cull comes in December!

I have to admit that commenting comes less frequently than reading. I'm a big fan of Tech :-) Happy by an educator in Singapore. He always has a list of relevant and informative links every Friday. If I'm commenting on a blog it's usually to note my appreciation and to add a link or two I can share that the blogger did not include in their initial post. And of course it's always nice to get feedback from the blogger!

I have a wide variety of different educational blogs in my feed and I have different reasons for choosing them. I have straight forward educational technology blogs which I use to keep up to date with resources being used or recommended for use in classrooms. I have anecdotal blogs about day to day life in the classroom; I find these very useful to see how other teachers face the same challenges that I have faced. It makes me feel like we're all facing the challenging profession of teaching together and we are all easily contactable and never far from lending or taking advice. I also follow classroom blogs that teachers around the world have made as a record of their learning. These blogs do not necessarily include technology integration but offer a window into the classroom of today and give me a hypothetical question as to what would or could I do if I worked in that school to integrate technology into the Unit they are studying and posting about. The last type of blog I follow is just a Hong Kong University feed which keeps me up to date on any seminars or workshops that are coming up in Hong Kong.

I use what I learn from my RSS reader in a number of ways. I will store any links that I think are useful in my Diigo for future investigation. I will make contact with any educator if I feel like we can learn from each other. I will bring up resources, ideas and/or links to the classroom teachers when we meet to discuss whether they are viable to use in current or future units of work. And just recently I have begun to collect blogs in a Diigo list I think our classroom teachers will find useful and will share that with them so they may start their own RSS collection of blogs.
I believe that if I get across the usefulness of subscribing to blogs to our teachers they will open up a vast array of self-directed (and most often free of charge!) professional development opportunities. These may take the form of connecting with other classes and teachers around the world or simply just learning about new resources, techniques or current practices that are being used in classrooms around the world.