Thing 5

At first I did find it to be a bit overwhelming before I organized the different blogs and posts into folders.  There was way too many lines of information on my Google Reader screen and I didn't know where the blogs/posts were coming from.  Now that I have them organized and can tell which folder is highlighted red, I know what I am looking at.  I think that the organization of the blogs in my reader makes it less overwhelming.   I also think that because of the RSS being placed into your reader it is information that you want to see and be able to access quickly, which is exactly what RSS is meant to do.  I think that with anything new it just takes some time to get used to, and once you have been using for awhile it becomes far less overwhelming and more second nature.  I think the hardest part is figuring out what blogs actually contain information that is worthy of an RSS feed to your Google Reader.

Thing 4

I feel that I will be able to use RSS in both my personal and professional life.  I like how it makes it simple to have all of the information from your favorite websites sent to one site, instead of having to visit each individual site to get the information that I am looking for.  I feel that could be very useful in my professional life by having the Google Reader setup with CNN Student News as well as updates from Mr. Gribble, to various professional development sites will allow me to sort through information quickly and save time.  As for my personal life I believe that RSS will again help me to save time by quickly scanning the updated news feeds and if something catches my interest I can then go to the main site for the rest of the story as opposed to going to Freep.com and scanning all of the headlines, then jumping over to the ESPN.com to scan the top stories.  This is a great time saving tool! 
I prefered the subscribing where all I had to do was click on a button and it would automatically add the feed to my google reader.  I felt that the method of subscribing where we had to copy and paste the link was more time consuming.  Also, if your not careful and don't highlight the entire link you wont be able to add the feed and have to repeat the process.

Thing 3

I feel that I could use a blog in a variety of ways.  The first way that I feel a blog could be beneficial is by how I could use it to post daily homework assignments and activities in class.  The second way that I could a blog would be to use it as an open dicussion where students and I could interact with each other outside of the normal school time.  For example, if we have a test, quiz, or an assignment that is going to be coming up soon, students could post a question and their classmates or I could respond to the post to help them make sure they are getting the proper information they need to be ready to for the upcoming test or project.  A third way a blog could be useful for me is to post videos to the blog that I have used in class so that my students can have a link to the videos if they need to re-watch a video to help clarify or refresh their understanding of the content.
I think that my students might be a bit apprehensive at first about trying the blog assignments, but once we have done a couple of the assignments together in a computer lab, they would probably feel comfortable enough to be able to do the assignments on their own.  I think the overall response to a blog assignment would be very positive.

The only concern I have about educational blogging are how do you keep students from posting irrelevant or inappropriate comments?  However, I guess in a way that would be taken care of by only allowing registered users to respond and making sure that I have a list of my students screen names. 

Thing 1 and Thing 2

I am participating in 23 Things, because I hope it will help me to become a more effective teacher.  I never thought about how important technology could be in today's classroom.  I hope that by taking the 23 things course that I will learn some new techniques to use in my classroom to help spark engagement and thus improve learning amongst my students.
I was shocked by how Thing 1 told us that we are still needed by our students to help them sort out the over abundance of information.  It just goes to show us that even though our students are tech-savvy they still need direction in how to locate and sort out what is considered to be "good and reliable" information from information that is "not reliable or bad." 

I kind of like the idea that anyone can read or respond to what  I write on my Blog.  It is a good place to put out information to my students and parents and allow them to ask and answer questions.  I also think it is a great way to have a group discussion.  Sometimes I feel students who are shy or do not like public speaking will enjoy being able to engage in group discussion, through the use of a blog post. 

At first I was a bit overwhelmed with the idea of creating a Blog, but this was actually pretty painless. I will definitely start using this in my classroom.