Blog and RSS

Blog and RSS Reader

I have been familiar with Bloger for a long time. This use for this class is better for me because I like to summary my ideas and write down what I have learned or experienced in my blog like a diary, which I can keep my thoughts and academic history in a one place. I sometimes post my records to Twitter or facebook to share with my friends.  Actually, I’ve tried book diaries a few times, though I always couldn’t keep doing them continually and lost or ruined these books in the end. Also, I have had experienced to put down and submit references for a class, though I lost these papers after the class finish because they would become mess and I didn’t feel like rereading the written visual records On the other hand, blog by tech can last forever as long as we can use internet, and it doesn’t be mess in a bag. Also, it’s easier to review my records whenever I want in the future and check ones my friends have experiences via laptop, iphone, ipad, and more. Moreover, if we have the page for specific field like this class, we can discuss in a blog and share ideas for ourselves.

I haven’t cared about RSS and it was my first try for it. To be honest, when I set up RSS, the page seemed not be clear, and I was really confused to handle it. I read what RSS is on wikipedia and instructions about it on e-learning over and over again. Also, I didn’t notice even I had set up it already. However, now that I have used and researched Google Reader, I enjoy organizing my page with interesting feeds. First of all, it’s easy to know there are new uploaded pages in any feeds, and if we divide feeds into some folders by their fields. I submitted to News and some interesting articles involved in Educational Technology addition to all students’ blog pages, so made News folder, EDT, and EDT5410. We can see many interesting websites via just Google Reader without opening a lot of sites. I noticed that subscribing on here is like “like” on Facebook that we can see new information of our own interesting pages that we did “like”. There is one question. If we open many pages for a long time, sometimes freezing or slow response happen for the high volume data.  How about this time? We can connect some feeds in one window at the same time, though does it influence to any damages?

The Cone of Experience, Edgar Dale (1969)

As a result, I think both of Blog and RSS lend themselves to Dramatized Experienced, Demonstrations, and Exibits depending on viewpoints of where we are standing since all of these experiences include in both of “observing experience” and “acting experience”.

First of all. Blog has two ways to participate. One of them is mainly to share our recodes involved in our ideas, experiences, thoughts, believes, and minds on our page with people who check the page. The another one is when we read other writers’ blogs, which means you “observe” their records. In Dramatized Experience, as the author states, there are two roles of this experience; actor or actress in the play and audience in front of the stage. According him, participants directly in the drama is more close than spectators. Similarly, I think owners who manage the blogs can feel the subjects of the contests in their blogs more and understand the objects. Visitor to the blog can also learn or feel objects via the blogs.

Similarly, in Demonstrations, students have observing experience. However, like his example of chemistry class, students would demonstrate by themselves after observing experiments. Considering to this, we can be observers with information vis RSS and Blog, and show our own opinions for the new source in Blog.  We can be positions of both of observers by RSS and demonstrator by Blog.

 Exibits Experience has also two stiles of exhibit; “ready-made” prepared by more academic agency and “home-made” readied by students according to him. Here, RSS can be former. We can learn new information by some feeds via RSS and other peoples’ Blog. On the other hand, students can show their own opinions and ideas on Blog even here as exhibition.

Therefore, Blog is mainly to show or share our own ideas and learn via others blog. RSS can be source of information and students can have “abstract experience” or “sensory experience”.

 Falling Asleep at Your Keyboard: The Case for Computer Imagination

 Martin Siegel(2003)

            As I state already above, the “imagination” educational use of Blog is that participates including in teachers and students can share their own thoughts wherever and whenever they can use internet with clearer visuals than notebooks. Face-to-face discussing with materials and memos is also similar, though sometimes the points are unclear and it should sometimes make participate be confused during the discussion. In the end, less information might be in their mind after discussion than sharing and learning their ideas on blog.

            Also, “imagination” educational use of RSS is to see much newly interesting information on a page without going several pages on web-site compared to checking a ton of textbooks. We can choose interesting keywords and focus on them from websites without looking for just necessary information by turning over pages from books piled next you.