Reflecting Pools

RSS subscribing and managing is SO much easier than it was two years ago! When I first learned about RSS feeds, I rushed to my computer to get set up. Unfortunately, I was never able to load anything without help, and I constantly forgot to check on the one or two that I had subscribed to–with help.

Now, however, I’m excited. Locating, subscribing, and perusing my feeds was easy and fun! I laughed: two of the required sites were already in my favorites. In a minute, I’ll locate those bogs I really enjoyed from Thing 4 (such as Cool Cat Teacher) and add those to my list. Cancel the above comment. Subscribing is so easy that when I went to Cool Cat to copy the link, I just subscribed at the same time! What did I tell you?

One thing that really interested me was the podcast that we included. I’ve been curious about podcasting, but haven’t created or even listened. I am such a visual learner that many purely listening experiences are lost almost immediately; and no, it’s not a matter of attention. If I see it, it’s mine. If I hear it, it’s hair today, gum tomorrow. (Yes, I did spell intentionally.) Since I’m an English teacher (one hat, anyway), I subscribed to the Grammar Grates and listened to the Subjunctivitis session and howled. I couldn’t imagine interesting my kids until the session reached the part with the pseudo-British teacher having his students present current raps and other songs which used the subjunctive verbs incorrectly. That was funny and made the point convincingly that our students just don’t “get” the verbs of wishing/hoping/possibility. For the first time, I began to see that a podcast might educate me and my students.

I learned something big from that podcast. I remembered the tutorial part only because I already knew it–it was review. I remembered the example portion (new material) because I could easily envision it–it was creative and tapped my experiences. That’s something to remember when I begin creating podcasts for my own students. It would be a great review tool right before a test. It would also be great for getting a bit crazy to make salient points and examples.

Filed under: Learning K12 2.0 and tagged envision, podcast, RSS