RSS Feeds
This semester I followed many RSS feeds that have supported my professional development. A lot of the feeds are pod
casts or blogs, which are very helpful, and they give good advice and information about technology and education. By following these RSS feeds on a regular basis it is helping me to stay up to date with the recent news in education.
I have viewed and read several different RSS feeds that might help me in the classroom one day when I am a teacher. I read an article about the power of digital storytelling to help students understand immigration, sacrifices and war, from the Moving at the Speed of Creativity website. It discusses a group of teachers that create videos that tell the stories of families who have immigrated to the United States or have served in a war. This would be very valuable to show my students because instead of just lecturing about immigration and war, I could show these videos that have actual families that have experienced it and can tell their story which is a way more interesting way to learn. The use of images and other types of media can really extend the learning opportunities of students and making the lesson more personal through use of storytelling can help the students remember better. Also from the Moving at the Speed of Creativity website, there is an article about VLE versus MLE, VLE stands for Virtual Learning Environment which is a software system that is meant to support teaching and learning in education. A VLA is usually over the Internet and it provides tools for assessment, communication, uploading assignments, returning homework, peer assessment, and grades. This is like when we use Blackboard in class, we can look at our grades and submit assignments online. This is good information for me to use as an educator because this kind of software would be very useful in the classroom and it would make things a lot easier for me. I would just have to be careful not to let that replace interaction with students.
There are many other articles I have read and pod casts I have listened to that discuss different technologies or interview educators. I think that all of this really assists me with my professional development and it keeps me up to date with everything going on in the world of education. It helps me stay in tune with all of the most recent technologies and what is good and what isn’t. The interviews are very useful because it gives another educators opinion or point of view about a certain topic. A lot of the articles I read give advice and very useful information that I will be able to use in my classroom one day.
