Another type of web site I took a look at were the sites that allow you to capture a real time look at various websites. You basically set up your own personal page based on your interests. As long as it has an RSS feed you can view it on your page. Sites like Pageflakes and Netvibes let you feed Sports, Weather, News, Blogs, anything your heart desires.
As a Teacher and a Technology Coordinator, this type of thing could be a real headache. Students could constantly be checking out anything and everything on the web. I imagine, however, if the school or district blocks a specific site, that it would be blocked through this web site as well. Regardless, it could still make for some difficult situations.
As with all technology, as we have come to learn, you need to work with it, not against it. One of the nice features of these pages, as with many online technologies, is the ability to share what you find important. You can create your own page of links and then make it public for all to see, or send it to whomever you want. Now, as a teacher, I could find this very useful in say an English Literature class. Have a blog feed set to discussions on a certain period of work. Feed in book reviews, video, and podcast all pertaining to these works. Then you have a reference page for you students to access where they can get various forms of media and opinions on the subject.
I have still yet to determine which site I like the best. I find positive and negative qualities in both. Overall, I would think there could be many creative ways to use either of these pages. More than I could ever think of. The key is to remember, we need to "HELP" our students use this technology, to prohibit.
References:
PageFlakes. Retrieved April 12, 2007 from www.pageflakes.com
NetVibes. Retrieved April 12, 2007 from www.netvibes.com
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2 comments:
I agree with you totally . . . this is an excellent and upcoming technology that could have many personal uses. I am not sure I see the need for something like this in education and especially by students in lab settings. However, if the upcoming software packages in student records , test scores, attendance, etc would contain a feed that could be tapped into then we have something. Teachers could then have a "dashboard" of information at their finger tips and be able to respond to issues as quickly as they come up.
Furthermore, it would be my guess that these types of "feeds" would not be blocked by the schools filters and firewalls which only block by URL's usually. This would be a concern and another way like a proxy kids would try to get around the security settings already in place.
Overall, a cool thing for future applications that are developed to be used as an information "dashboard" for teachers, but not for random student use in a lab setting.
Change of expectations? Although I believe that this is great, I mean my yahoo page provides this type of service and I love it for keeping up with friends blogs. I am a little afraid/excited of how are expectations of knowledge will change in the future. Can you see it now, 11am "Didn't you hear about the student who got in a fight this morning?", "uh no" - "well haven't you checked the discipline RSS feed? It was updated 20min ago?" The expectations of our knowledge is going to be more and the expectations of how fast we get information. I can see it now, every teacher will be equipt with a PDA so that all information will be access through that - along with a GPS locator incase they can't find you and you are in the bathroom.
I know I am going to extremes, and I am excited about the world of technology broadening our knowledge base, I just like to try and forecast the future. I mean - remember someone thought computers would be no big woop.
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