Salsera Sourcestress

I had continuous technical problems posting to someone else’s blog so I sent them e-mail to comment on it!  I’ll keep trying it.

I was tickled at how easy it was to set up the reader.  Even though Google has categories from which to choose, I still think it is a big task to find everything that you might want to add to your reader.  The one major drawback to using this service for me has been the time.  I understand that using RSS is supposed to save time because one doesn’t have to search each site on a daily basis.  Because iGoogle is not set as our homepage, I still have to purposefully go there to check my flow of incoming information.  When I went a couple of weeks without checking it, I had over 1,000 entries to peruse!  I’m not sure I will ever catch up.  I do think it would be wonderful if students could use this service.  Long-term projects could be greatly enhanced by continuously updated information.  I forsee it as exceedingly useful with a project like our “Eyes Wide Open” where students work on real-world issues for months, preparing an after school presentation and promoting social activism.  The point of these programs is for each student to find their “passionate cause” and continue working for that cause.  RSS could help them remain aware of current issues even as they move on to college.

I found these comments interesting – comparing the different photo services.  If you would like to read these short discussions, you might be better able to decide which tools you want to use with your students.

http://mcdevzone.com/2008/07/02/smugmug-vs-flickr/

http://www.jasonmorrison.net/content/2007/picasa-vs-iphoto-vs-flickr-vs-panoramio/

http://firsttube.com/read/Review-Picasaweb-vs-Flickr/

I think perhaps that the key to all these technologies is finding the one that speaks to YOU.  Many tools serve similar functions, but the exact details or ease of use appeal to different people.  Is choosing “one” to “unfilter” the best educational strategy?  Maybe, I’m not sure. 

I do like the way Nancy has linked definitions and additional explanations into the exercises.

Having struggled with this “Week 2″ exercise for weeks and weeks while I work on other things, I am most jazzed so far about Flip cameras.  I checked one out from school a couple of months ago and have been taking it on trips and playing with it.  It seems that to keep up with relevant technology in the outside world, and in the spirit of making presentations which will move the viewer, our kids need to move away from Power point and become more literate in the “moving” technologies.

Hmmm, this is from the Flickr toys.  I discovered you have to make all the photos public before you can actually do anything with them.  That bothers me if we are doing things for school.  Do we make everything public to use the tools, then go back and change everything to private?  I can’t seem to find a way to arrange the pictures in the order that I would like them.  The order of upload seems to be the order they stay.  Perhaps I just haven’t discovered the method yet.

I’ve struggled with Flickr for weeks now.  What a wonderful idea, but it hasn’t consistently worked for me.  I have the picture on the previous post saved and tagged in Flickr, but it’s not showing up here.  Any suggestions?

This is my dear friend, Gloria, and I on the beach in El Salvador.  It was quite an experience.  We went to a Deaf school where the kids used American Sign Language but ‘spoke’ Spanish.  Gloria’s parents are from El Salvador, but she had never been there before. 

nose

Click on the above link to view video

Again, it feels like having to go to a “separate place” is a blog weakness.  Adults seem to prefer mass e-mailing a group of friends for discussions.  Maybe students have a different attitude.  We have a lot of service projects in our school.  Maybe students working on long-term projects like that could use a blog to communicate. 

The avatar is kind of fun, but I’m not seeing the point.  I think I want to learn how to make one that flies in the virtual library world.