Wow.... I don't know why I haven't done this before. I've seen "reader" on my Google home page, but I didn't know what it was, and I guess, I wasn't all that curious. All I have to say is it is so cool! I love being able to have everything in one place. I don't have to check one site, then another, and another. It's all there! In the video we watch on Moodle, the guy said it was addictive, and I believe it. I think I spent way too much time going to sites and adding them to my Google Reader! While sorting through A LOT of stories, I found one that made me stop and read it entirely. (After a while, I found myself reading headlines and starring items that I wanted to go back and read more.) It was, 11 Resources for Teaching and Learning Web Safety. I thought this would be an interesting article to share because we have been learning about using "Internet Tools" in the classroom, and it's important to understand and to teach Internet safety. The Internet is great, but it's just too easy to get places that are not safe. This article provides 11 links to other sites about Internet safety, so you can choose depending on what suits you class' needs most.
I'm really enjoying the Google Reader, and this reminds me of our past assignment about "blogging literacy". Although not everything we're reading on Google Reader are blogs, we are still reading. This really changes the way we read online now. Everything is together in the same place, and depending on how much you subscribe to, you can read for hours!!!
"11 Resources" is an excellent source of web safety information for teachers, parents, everybody! I now have it bookmarked.. thanks for sharing!
ReplyDeleteI feel the same way as you about my reader, now. My husband encouraged me to add it to my Google tools a few years ago, and he would share various articles with me through the Reader, but I never knew it's true usefulness until stocking it with "stuff" for this assignment! I have to be careful how deep I dive when I start reading, or I lose track of time and get nothing else done and only hit the tip of the iceberg on the stuff I need to be reading. True that we don't read our RSS feed the same way as we would traditionally read various types of print. However, I find myself NOW scanning magazines that come in the mail and the few times I pick up a newspaper in similar ways to my reader subscriptions. I don't give many articles in a newspaper or magazine more than a quick glance anymore, read the headline and that's about it unless it interests me. Google Reader is training me!
I am curious to know, since I am not in a classroom of kids at present, if you've thought about using this in your class and how. Just getting a feel for what all you "real" teachers are thinking in terms of your classroom :)
I checked out the 11 Resources for Teaching and Learning Web Safety page and it seemed to have a lot of relevant information for our students. I like how it seems to reach many different ages and genders. There is one Internet safety site made especially for girls. These sites and videos would be useful to show students at the beginning of the year, during counsel time, media time, etc...Students should continually be reminded of the dangers of too much information, appropriate sites, and internet etiquette.
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