Edublogging

I looked at the following five blogs this week:

1. Anne Davis
2. Jeremy Hiebert
3. Brian Lamb
4. Elizabeth Lane Lawley
5. D’Arcy Norman

Probably the most exciting topic that I stumbled across was posted by both Brian and D’Arcy. Brian initially shared a version of Flickr’s usage of tags (see my entry for October 1, 2004) and I quickly saw a way to incorporate a similar method for working with metadata within digital libraries. The possibilities are endless. I also enjoyed reading personal information on the above blogs – it gives the posters a sense of identity. (Interesting side note – my mother was visiting last week and ABSOLUTELY did not want a picture of her or her grandchildren, my boys, on the Internet.) It is interesting to see how different generations embrace or fight technology.

Educational use of technology is definitely interesting and plausible. A few of the blogs I read this week shared great ideas and suggested ways that blog in particular could be used in the classroom. Anne has a GREAT list as does Stephen Downes. Incorporating technology in the classroom affords students one more option to learn how things work. Particularly in the area of science, students can do so much more if they have technology in the classroom. For instance, remember the good old frog dissection days? The lab coats and smell of formaldehyde? I still think this is an experience everyone should have, but what about virtually dissecting the frog first? If the budget doesn’t allow 250 students to each personally dissect their own frog, isn’t this virtual dissection better than nothing? There has been a tremendous effort to create digital learning objects and to catalog them in digital libraries. I strongly believe these enhance students’ educational experiences.

Logged hours: 5 hours