Week 2 Reflection

So far I really like having a blog.  I have been using it to watch what other people post.  I have not been posting myself, but I have been able to find a lot of other math teachers who have really good lessons who are sharing.  I find it hard to find good lessons by just searching the internet.  You have to go through a lot of stuff before you find something that does that job.  A lot of times, I would just get annoyed and end up making something by myself.  On blogger, I have started to follow a couple of other people in order to find good activities that will help my students learn.

I think that I am confused with the RSS reader.  I tried to add everyone to mine and I'm not sure if I'm not doing it right or what exactly is going wrong.  I understand that you can see who has new posts, but do you have to go to the site that you are following them on to see their new posts?  I keep trying to click on their name but nothing is happening.  Any ideas?

I think a blogger could fit into a few different parts of Dale's cones.  It depends on what you are trying to get out of it.  I think that it would mostly fall under exhibits.  It's a working model that is displayed in a meanful way.  You can easily read and see what people are trying to get across.  You can click on different links and go to different sites based on what you are trying to accomplish.  With this being said, I also think that you would be under verbal symbols and demonstrations depending on what people are blogging about.  Some people who are blogging, can post videos of them teaching, cooking, sewing, doing anything!  If they are using their blogger for this reason, it would be more of demonstrating.  Some other people use their blogger to just put out their ideas, these blogs would fall under verbal.  

I would put RSS reader under exhibits also since it gives you a meaningful list that you can go back to.  Like I said previously, I'm just not sure how these lists are extremely useful.

I could see using blogger with my students in many different ways.  I could easily post their homework or any questions that a majority of the students have.  I could also post videos from Khan Academy, Brainstorm, or any of those websites to help my students if they get stuck on a problem at home.  With blogging, the students could also talk to one another about the different problems to get help on them.  I'm just not convinced that blogger would be a better tool then other websites like schoology.

If I had my students do a blogger, I would also have them sign up for RSS reader so they could easily know when others post on their blogs.  However, right now I don't feel comfortable enough with RSS reader to have my students sign up for it.