A Specific Example of Tech Transparency
2 11 2007This is a very simple way of getting your technology to work for you, instead of you for it. RSS feeds are great means of getting and keeping students informed. Many of you may already be doing this, but it surprises me how many otherwise tech-savvy colleagues are completely unaware of these, to say nothing of how they work or how to use them. I use a blog for lesson description and reminders in my history and government classes. My students can access their assigned readings, participate in discussions, and listen to my lectures if they want or need to. I have also posted my syllabus, various course-related materials, and numerous links there. Pretty standard stuff.
Our students use iBooks, and the only browser they can use on them is Safari – which has a great, built-in RSS reader. Firefox does, too. I have no idea about the newest version of IE — I replaced my Dell over the summer with an iMac. Anyway, I have my students bookmark the course blog homepage RSS feed — Safari and Firefox both show the RSS icon in the URL window, and clicking on it reveals the feed for that page. So I have the kids bookmark those on their Bookmarks bar — that way when I update my blogs my students are automatically notified — in a place that is front & center on their screen when online — that something is new. I also have them do this for my class wikis. Even if your students don’t have laptops, you could provide the how-to information to your students for home use.
I prefer to use theoe browsers for the RSS feeds I read most often. Bloglines works well for things that I want to check daily or weekly, but for those things — like the news — that I check throughout the day, it’s most convenient for me to have those feeds bookmarked right on the Bookmarks bar, making new posts obvious.
Virtually none of my students — maybe 1 in 20 — knew how to make this happen on their own. It took a few minutes of a lesson one day, and now my motivated kids are getting on with their work without me needing to tell them. Some show up for class already having perused our work for the day, and they get started right away. It’s a building process, of course, but one that is paying off already. Anything I can use to help my students become more self-sufficient is good.
As I said, maybe this bit of advice seems silly for many of you out there — and believe you me, I am Mr. Junior Blogger in Training, still trying to make trackbacks work right. But don’t fault me if you think this is too obvious; others don’t, and when we assume that they — our students, their parents, our colleagues — know about the latest *stuff* without being sure, we’re creating problems for them and ourselves.
Thoughts?
jdg
Agreed! We readily make the assumption that because kids are into gaming and social networking that they really know how to make the technology work for them. They don’t. They need teachers like you who are showing them a little at a time how the technology can support their learning.
Diane –
Good point. We need to model the proper & proficient use of technology. Yet when I say that, I also ask this: with so much emphasis placed on testing and benchmarks and whatnot, when will we have time to do this? Spending time – even a little – on non-content skills or knowledge is going to force on us an opportunity cost of the content we’re primarily charged with teaching. Thankfully my state does not (yet) have a high school history exam, so I’m not under as much pressure as those in the other three content areas. But where do we find this time to teach, model, and reinforce the tech so we can improve the quality of our teaching in order to improve student learning?
Note: I believe it can be done.
Thoughts?
jdg