Task 6: A Cool Tool or 2

Some interesting stuff on the "cool tools" list, and of course some annoying stuff.

It's a little embarassing, but not at all surprising, that my favorite was the most old school -- the flash cards. The uses are just so obvious and immediate, and I may start as soon as this week, since we're studying the Constitution and Bill of Rights and there's a lot for the kids to remember. (I'm a little unsure of the logistics of making a deck and then giving kids access to it, but it seems figure-out-able.) Tried Quizlet first (http://quizlet.com/) and immediately signed up for it, but then I checked out Flashcard Friends (http://www.flashcardfriends.com/welcome.php) and actually liked it better. It seems more versatile, and you can upload images and sounds to the flash cards for free, whereas on Quizlet you have to become a paying member to do such things. I love that you can add both images and sounds to the cards. Anyway, definitely something I want to make part of my repertoire.

I also signed up for TeacherTube (http://www.teachertube.com/members/myHome.php). It looks like you have to slog through lots of junk to find the videos you'd actually want to use, and I don't know how much patience I'll have for that, but I did pretty quickly find one clip from the John Adams mini-series on HBO, and that made me think that this has possibilities. And for myself, at least, though maybe not for the class, I signed up for "Ta-Da Lists" (http://tadalist.com/). I was skeptical about that at first, but as a major list-maker, the idea of having all sorts of them, short-term and long-term, saved electronically in one place is intriguing. Whether I'll find the time to start making and saving them is another question.

Some other sites were intriguing at first, but then annoying or frustrating in one way or another. I'm interested in the comic strips sites for example, but Toon-Doo's homepage was just confusing and gave no indication of where to start, and Pixton apparently is a paying thing (although I know Elizabeth uses it for 8th grade science -- is she paying thru her class budget?). GoAnimate doesn't say on the homepage whether it's free or not, then implies that it is when you go to register, and then starts talking about something called "Go bucks". I'm sorry, that's just sleazy. Bye bye. And Glogster's homepage seems to be nothing but utterly vague platitudes that give no idea of what you would actually use it for. I was too irritated by that to want to search for specifics.

But hey, at least I found a few things I like. Not easy for a grouch like myself.

Task 5: RSS Distress

Actually, I'm less distressed than I was, though still not convinced that the RSS feed is something I'll like using. I still find it extremely frustrating that Google Reader won't let me delete unwanted stuff. I'd like to only see the new items and the ones I've chosen to keep and read later, and to be able to delete everything else -- just as you can do with e-mail and podcasts and such. Amy had me try Bloglines, which sounded like it might be better, but that hasn't really done the trick either. Actually, it seems to go to the opposite extreme. When I click on one of the sites (or "feeds" or whatever), even if I only open one item there -- or even if I don't open any of them -- if I then go to another site and then come back to the first one, all the items are gone and the feed is empty. Don't know if that makes sense or if I'm using the proper terminology. Anyway, I'm back to just using the Google Reader, but still grudgingly. I wince every time I see all those unwanted articles clogging up the screen.

One of my biggest pet peeves about computer stuff, even before this, has been having to deal with programs or software that won't let me operate the way I want to. For the last year or so, for example, I've been making myself use Word instead of my beloved Appleworks (which I'm told will be disappearing before long) and I absolutely despise Word, mainly because it constantly insists on doing things that I don't want it to do. I've learned how to turn off a lot of the more annoying automatic features, but there are still lots of things it does that I haven't found a way to disable. I know I'm a bit obsessive about wanting to do things in my own way. I can't buy planners or datebooks from a store, for example -- I have to make my own, homemade calendar pages (with Appleworks, of course) and clip them into a binder, because none of the pre-made ones are organized the way I like. I can't stand the idea of using evaluation templates like Power-whatever because they're designed by some software engineer somewhere and look completely impersonal and boring and don't allow for any spark of individuality or personality. I have to design my own evaluations. And I don't use any textbook when I teach history because I have yet to find one I like and would rather just present and organize the information in my own way. Hell, I'm still writing checks to pay my bills each month because I don't like the idea of letting it be done automatically and electronically. So yeah, I know I'm pretty extreme about this. But what I loved about Appleworks (still love -- it's not dead yet) is that it allows me to do things exactly the way I want. Everything that happens as I create a document or graphic happens because I make it happen, not because the software starts doing it on its own. With Word I am constantly trying to undo things that it insists on doing "for me". Anyway, so this Google Reader thing is irritating for similar reasons. I end up yelling at the computer screen like a crazy person because it won't let me do what I want. It's not pretty. I'm not proud of it.

But enough ranting for today. I'm supposed to say if I found any especially interesting feeds. I guess the most promising ones for me are the history feeds. One is from American Heritage (http://www.americanheritage.com/). I've always loved that magazine, but I've never been able to buy an issue without keeping it forever, because there are just too many interesting articles to throw away. I still have issues on my class shelf from 20 years ago. So it's great that I can now collect the articles I want electronically. (If only I could also delete the ones I don't want....) There's a similar feed called "Suite 101: American History Articles" (http://AmericanHistory.suite101.com/), and I think there will be a lot there that I want to save and read. And finally there's one called "BackStory - with the American History Guys" (http://backstoryradio.org/). It's actually a radio program. For each episode there's a summary/intro, and then you can click and listen. From what I've heard so far it seems pretty good. For now this is all just for my own edification. Whether or how I might use these with kids remains to be seen.

I'll keep trying to get used to the Google Reader, or at least make some sort of peace with it. But for now, on to Task 6, at last.

Task 4: Damn

I really thought this part would be right in my wheelhouse (as we baseball fans like to say). I had anticipated that the RSS feeds, at least, would be something I could appreciate. For several years now I've been subscribing to various podcasts, keeping them on both my computer and iPod, and listening to them in the car, on walks, etc. I love my podcasts. I figured RSS feeds from favorite news sites, websites, or blogs would work basically the same way. I totally bought the idea that taking the time to actually visit the websites of the New York Times or The New Yorker or Salon.com was soooooooo 20th century, and that it would be so much more efficient to let Google Reader send me stuff from those websites instead. I fully expected that after this task, at least, I could manage to sound like an enthusiastic 2.0 fan.

Damn. No such luck. It's been incredibly frustrating. My biggest gripe (as Amy knows, god bless her, because I've been e-mailing her repeatedly about this), is that I can't delete all the content (about 90% of it, mind you) that I know at first sight I don't want. With podcasts or with e-mails you can quickly eliminate stuff that you know isn't relevant to you or that you don't want to waste time on. Over the last few years I've gotten really good at doing that, even though it's difficult for a pack rat like me. I've become downright brutal about deleting an NPR story or a song-of-the-day or a podcast episode that I know I'm never going to make time for. I still end up with a long list of songs or podcasts-in-waiting, and it's sometimes months later that I finally catch up on them, but that's how I deal with it, and so far it's worked for me. But apparently (and I say this with absolute shock and disgust, after hours and hours of trying to prove otherwise) -- apparently, Google Reader will NOT LET ME DELETE THINGS I DON'T WANT, and that makes the whole experience completely frustrating and overwhelming. (There's that word again - "overwhelming".)

From what I've seen so far, I would much rather continue just visiting the NYTimes website, or Salon.com, or whatever other websites and blogs I happen to like, and deciding for myself what I want to click on and maybe read and maybe even bookmark for future use. That seems far less stressful, less scattered and confusing, and less time-consuming than having Google Reader send me this endless deluge of stuff that I CAN'T MANAGE THE WAY I WANT TO. Believe me, it pains me to still be so negative and grouchy about the one thing I expected to be positive about, but I just can't help it.

Unfortunately, to finish this task, I'm supposed to talk about one thing I actually liked. I wish I could say that it's one of the educational blogs, but so far they haven't impressed me. The "Infinite Thinking Machine", or whatever it's called, seems like mostly a promotional site for various authors and seminar leaders. I don't blame them for jumping on the 2.0 gravy train and finding a way to make a living that doesn't involve spending the rest of their lives in actual classrooms with actual children. They get to travel, they get to be treated like experts, and they get to spend most of their time talking to adults with functioning frontal lobes. Sweet. But as one who does have to be back in a classroom with actual children tomorrow, I don't see anything in their P.R. blurbs that makes me want to waste time on them tonight. As for the "iLearn Technology" site, most of it seems to be cute little activities for elementary kids. (In Web 2.0, as in most educational arenas, it seems that much of what you see is aimed at wide-eyed, eager 4th graders -- not at the pseudo-cynical, pseudo-world-weary junior high kids whom I try to teach. I have yet to see an educational guru -- computerized or not -- who seems to be dealing with the same kids I am every day.) Actually, I do like the "Free Technology for Teachers" site (http://www.freetech4teachers.com/), which I think was recommended on one of the sample blogs we visited in an earlier task -- or maybe it was one of the sample blogs. Anyway, I like it because it's just nuts and bolts recommendations, not a lot of preaching about we must "revolutionize our teaching for the 21st century" or a lot of cutesy, gimmicky stuff. I've seen several things on there that I could imagine using some day (although for now, of course, I've just starred them in case some day I actually have time to read them, and god knows when I'd find the time to actually figure them out and use them).

Another site I've liked (if only because I hadn't discovered it before through other means) is The New York Times "Lens" blog (http://lens.blogs.nytimes.com/) Is it a blog or just a website? -- whatever. Anyway, every day they send you maybe 12 or 15 "pictures of the day" from NYTimes photographers all around the world, and in between they have various stories or feature galleries or what-not from one of those photographers. (A recent example of the latter was an op-ed from a Times photographer in Iraq about why he dislikes The Hurt Locker. Very interesting.) You can view any of the photo galleries on "full screen" as "slide shows" and they're freaking cool. I plan to spend a lot of time on current events next year and I think looking at this site with the kids will be a regular feature. But I don't really need Google Reader for that, do I? Now that I know I like it, I'll just bookmark it and go there whenever I want, instead of having Google Reader send me a relentless stream of stuff that it won't let me delete!?!?!

And the more I think about it, the more I realize that I like visiting the individual sites, whether it's somebody's blog or The New Yorker or whatever. The sites feel like real destinations, and they each have their own personality, which Google Reader definitely does not. Aside from the irritation of trying to manage all the stuff it sends me, it's depressing to think that I'd be looking at it all the time and not at the sources themselves. We're already getting so disconnected from individual newspapers and such, and I don't like the idea of only seeing parts of what they do boiled down to a list at one location. Take, for example, the site Strange Maps (http://strangemaps.wordpress.com/) which I've had bookmarked for several years now. I don't go there very often, just every few months or so, but I like visiting and scrolling through and seeing what they've been up to lately. Same with, say, A Way With Words (http://www.waywordradio.org/) or The Onion (http://www.theonion.com/content/) or James Howard Kunstler's blog about architecture and planning (http://www.kunstler.com/index.php). The latter, in particular, is very quirky and interesting to look through, but they all have their charms and I don't really want them filtered through Google Reader. I'd rather just go visit them once in a while.

Anyway, I'll continue on to Task 5, of course, and keep messing with this. But so far this, too, has me feeling like Grumpy Grumperson. Maybe that's what I should call this blog. Or I could use Spiro Agnew's line -- "Nattering Naybob of Negativism".

Task 3 question

In part 2 of this task it says that, when visiting someone else's blog, you should "include a link to your own blog in the 'website'". I'm not exactly sure what that means. Where do I do that? How do I do that? Why do I do that?

Task 3, part 2

First of all, I wanted to just add this to what I wrote before, but couldn't figure out how to edit or add to a post that's already been posted. Does anyone know how to do that?

Anyway, I wrote this in a comment on Swifty's blog but wanted to add it here because it was a big part of my reaction to the blogs I sampled. While I was impressed by the quality of the kids' posts in those blogs, they almost seemed to good to be true. The kids all sounded so intelligent and articulate and engaged in their posts, and I don't see how the mere act of typing your comments on a computer would create that. Is the teacher imposing specific guidelines about how much they blog, or are they being graded on the quantity and quality of what they write? I imagine a lot of our kids doing what they do on First Class forums -- typing in one and two-word responses, getting off track and writing goofy stuff, etc. Once the novelty wears off, I find it hard to believe that their level of engagement will be any higher than it would be in other mediums. I also worry about the kids who really can't express themselves in writing very well. I have kids this year who can barely write a coherent sentence, and for some of them, posting their incoherent sentences for all the world to see would be quite humiliating.

Task 3: Intriguing and Overwhelming

Okay, so first off I thought it was kind of funny that at the end of this intriguing but overwhelming sample of blogs, the final one was about zen simplicity. Because really, no matter how intriguing this stuff is, in the end it makes me want to walk deep, deep into the woods, sit by a campfire, and never come back again. Or maybe just have a prefrontal lobotomy, if anyone still offers those. This all reminds me of the quote from Walt Kelly of Pogo: "We are confronted with insurmountable opportunities." That's been a motto for me for years. Even before personal computers my biggest issue in life was that there are too many choices, too many possibilities, and not enough time. This Web 2.0 stuff just multiplies that problem exponentially.

But okay, my usual grouching aside, it felt a little less overwhelming to be looking at some actual, specific blogs and see how real teachers use them in their real classroom. I especially liked the sites that had the kids acting as "scribes," and the "Extreme Biology" site where the kids published their own articles, and of course, Nathalie's site.

I'm still not quite sure what aspects I could or would want to adapt to my own classroom, and I don't know where I'd find the time to do so, and I'm already afraid (even without blogging or Facebooking or whatever) that the time I spend sitting here with my laptop will be leading very soon to a heart attack or stroke....... but there I go again. Okay, so I'm at least intrigued. I'll admit that I like the idea of using such technology, even if I'm not sure how or when I can make it a reality. Maybe I can start with something simple. We shall see.....