I think the RSS item could help the most in the future. What I imagine in the future is my students are going to be producing a lot, and it is going to be found in a variety of different places. RSS should make it easier for me to follow and keep up with what my students are producing. The corollary to all this is that if I'm going to be a guide, I need a closer connection to each student to see where they are going. The RSS feed should help with this in that I could be so closely connected that I may be able to offer recommendations of where to go or who to see about further research before I even get a chance to see or sit down with one of my students.
I am already planning on using Flick'r in my teaching, but this is something that I'm interested in and I thought would be fun to do with my 7th graders. I'm not sure it helps my teaching, other than it helps all my students to connect and know each other better. The RSS feed on the other hand really seems like it could help me with keeping track of all the information that comes in.
I like the comment about Flickr maybe not necessarily being a teaching tool all of the time but definitely a way to get kids connected. I struggle with my students in block schedule (4 classes a day) not knowing who their classmates are. We have about 500 total students, but I'm just talking about the ones they share classes with on any given day. I think that finding out about each other's personal hobbies, likes, dislikes etc. may go the distance when attempting kids to connect - not only with their instructors but with each other.
ReplyDeleteI just started using Flickr this week. I was curious to see if you know if there is a faster way to upload photo albums? I downloaded the iPhoto Flickr application but you still have to upload the photos one by one. I definitely agree with the RSS feed, it will be a huge help to me as well. How have your students liked working with Flickr so far?
ReplyDeleteMelissa, we are just introducing it to them this quarter. I do know that some of them are very excited, because I have had students try to join the class group already, without the formal instructions of how to do it.
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