GTD Share Activity

1.I tend to use mostly paper and pencil to organize my process, though I am open to the idea of using a piece of software to help better organize my process. I tend to use a listing system when determining what I need to accomplish in the day.

2.It took longer to go through the process than I thought. But I believe it has to do with still figuring out what strategies work for me. There were times when I felt that having a calendar program or some other organizational software would have been more effective, and easier to make changes to.

3.I think that this process will help me because it will take the system that I have already set up for myself and give it more structure.

4.I think my process will probably become a hybrid of what I am already doing and the GTD process. I will use the GTD process to incorporate more structure, flexibility and continuity to my process.

Social Networking in Education

I have been using some sort of social networking as long as I can remember, but when brought up in discussion at school it is always brought up in a negative context (i.e. “No student should be on Facebook while in their blended classes!”).  Almost making me feel guilty for being one of “those” people.

I have primarily used Facebook for the majority of my social networking needs.  I have been a proud member of the Facebook community for about 5 years or so, but I have never truly considered it a possible teaching tool.  In the article Social Networking Goes to School - by Michelle R. Davis published in Digital Directions, the author says, “…it has become so ubiquitous for students—who start using sites like Webkinz and Club Penguin when they are in elementary school—that it just makes sense to engage them this way.”  This resonated with me because it really shows the change our culture has gone through and makes me wonder why it is taking so long for our schools to catch up.  I know that there are school across the country that have teachers that are plenty tech savvy and incorporate it in their daily lessons, but the culture changes that are occurring in society that are standards now, seem to be taking some time to become standards in schools.  I feel that a lot of this comes from the stigma that has always come with the technology/internet serving more of an entertainment resource (causing students to become off task) than as a great educational resource.

I can see the value in a resource such as Ning.  For our blended courses students are exposed to several different ways they can use technology to supplement their learning.  One of them has been the use of forums to share ideas about specific topics and questions.   I think that Ning allows for students to have a common meeting space outside of Facebook to talk about class topics.  I feel that if I chose to create a group in Facebook it would be too informal and allow students to get off topic from the class. 



Above is a screen dump that I created on Jing of my RSS page.  I was able to find many sites and blogs that interested me to add to my RSS page.  This included: Science Blogs, MSNBC, Accuweather, and Science Magazine.  I also added the Health & Science NPR feed because I find that NPR covers many current science events.

I posted my comment to the blog Does technology enhance or detract from the wilderness experience? [Observations of a Nerd] through the Science Blogs RSS feed.  I commented on how I believe that technology has actually deliver the wilderness to my students because many of them have not had a lot of experience being in the wilderness.  I allows my students to have experiences with nature that they would never have without it (i.e. using the internet resources to support concepts that I am presenting to students in biology).

I have found while tracking my RSS feeds that update regularly and a few of them are hard to keep up with.  The Science Blog site streams several different blogs posted to the site.  This has allowed me to follow several different scientific topics that I can share with my students.  I chose the Accuweather RSS feed because I also teach a meteorology class and have found many resources from the site that I have the students use in my lesson.  I have found the MSNBC RSS feed is the hardest to keep up with regularly because of how often the site is updated, this also applies to the NPR: Top News feed.  I have my meteorology students do weekly current weather events (research the where, when and what of the event with question linking to the topic being discussed in class).  I allow the students to use several different sites to find their events, by having the Accuweather site and the MSNBC site it allows me to keep up on any weather events that my students may use for their assignment.  The science magazine RSS is more of a link to research current articles on topics that I am teaching.  I feel that I can use this as a primary resource to present to my students not only to supplement content but to also encourage student to strengthen their skills in inquiry.  

The difference between websites and blogs

Websites and blogs are very different from each other.  I wouldn’t say it’s like comparing apples to oranges, but I feel that they both serve different purposes.  Websites are less collaborative than blogs.  Blogs allow people to discuss topics and learn together about a topic and share what they know.  Websites are informational but do not allow for people to post and collaborate on the content actively.  One person, company, or a small group of people contribute to a website that has the permission to do so, while with a blog any person that the author allows can make comments or add to the blog. 

Both websites and blogs have a similar downfall and that is accuracy.  I feel that people have to be cautious about what they believe to be factual.  This has been an issue with the internet once it became public domain.  In a blog it seems easier to run across inaccurate information than in a website only because it is more of a “living” document than a web site.  Though websites can be updated as often as a blog, it is harder to have people from outside of the website creators to make changes to the content.