RSS Feeds Reflection and Report - FPLC Spring 2008
After being awarding a learning grant, my New Technologies FPLC decided on the individual technology we were going to focus on for this semester, RSS Feed aggregators. We planned to introduce them into our classes in the method we all thought would work best for our students and the class subject. By not all doing the exact same method, we hoped to inspire the students and still feel comfortable with our varying levels of expertise as instructors. We all teach different subject, different students with different levels of technology skills, and we as instructors as learning right along with them.
- What are you excited about?
I am excited to see if my hypothesis is going to be correct. I posit that my students (Library and Information Science) and the English students should adapt and use the technology quicker and better than the Exercise Science students. I am also anxious to see if the younger students take to the technology better than the older students. These are myths, but could they be proven as actual facts?
- What are you concerned about?
I am concerned about the timeline for the students, who already have their class schedules “jam packed” and this is just building one more thing on to their classes. I am also concerned about my timeline and work schedule, as busy as the students are, we as instructors are twice as busy!
Introducing Students to RSS Reflection
- Briefly summarize how you introduced students to RSS?
The students were shown a youtube.com video that instructed them on how to set up the aggregator (usually through Google). Then they were told about the Grant and what was being asked of them and why and offered extra credit for their involvement.
- What questions did they have? What did you expect? What surprised you?
They seemed pretty ok with it, however, the option for extra credit was not so appealing because the students who would participate anyway are at the top of the class and do not need the extra points. It always seems that the best students are the one who ask for more and embrace new things (technology) easier and more willingly.
- What difficulties did you have? How did you overcome them?
The main difficulty was time. I got started way too late into the semester and so I and the students did not get enough time to fully participate in and accomplish the tasks completely. I did not end up overcoming this obstacle.
- What would you do differently next time?
I would definitely begin at the start of the semester, put it into the syllabus and work with the students throughout the semester. I have never done something like this in one of my classes before and I learned a lot, even if it was not successful, I thought it was amazingly informative. I learned time management, classroom management and a new technology along with the students.
Reflecting on How the Students Worked with RSS
- Summarize the patterns, trends, themes of how you see students working with RSS.
The amount of information in the world and our students’ access to it can be overwhelming, as I stated up above, time management is something I lacked on this task. So the need for RSS feed aggregators is more important now more than ever. The use of RSS allows students a way to organize the way that information is presented to them. It is a type of “one stop” shopping that puts the new changes to web pages right in front of you without needing to go to the pages all individually. What a way in this busy time (school, home, work, play) to organize the information that you need to receive in a more logical and complete way. In the future students can you this technology to keep up on trends in their industry and use it for the advancement of their careers.
- What did you expect? What surprised you?
It is one thing to explain to the students how “cool” this tool is in helping them organize their information, and see that they “get” it and see the need for such a thing. But, it is quite another thing to actually get them to, download the reader from Google, sign up for the individual feeds, and then find the time to actually read the incoming information. Somewhere along the translation things broke down. In the initial class the reception was warm, but the actual follow through was disappointing.
- What difficulties did you have? Hoe id you overcome them?
The time management aspect was the toughest, I was so late in introducing the topic to the students that the follow through was almost impossible on both our ends. I never fully over came this obstacle and that was the toughest part for me. I learned the hard way!!!
- What would you do differently next time?
Spend more time in the actually class working with them on this new technology. The activity was set up in such a way as to take very little to no class time. The video was shown a very brief introduction was given and all the work was done outside of the class, including the surveys. I think the buy in from the students would have been much greater if more class time had been allotted.
Reflect on Tough Moments
- Summarize a “tough moment” as you were working with your RSS assignment
My toughest thing to overcome was my thinking I let my fellow FPLC members down with not participating fully with them, as I was not the Instructor of Record for any classes this Spring semester. If I had my own class, I know that the results would have been very different. I also regret the extra work I asked of Lorna Peralta in asking her to use her students for this experiment. I did not fully support her to the best of my abilities in this task and she and Shelley went way above and beyond in this task!
- How did you overcome the “tough moment”?
I apologized to both of them and explained the limitations I was under and why things worked out the way they did.
- What did you learn from the “tough moment”?
I learned that you get out of any task what you put into it and I would LOVE another opportunity to try this again, and I know that I WILL try it again with my own classes in the future and I will do better then because of the failures and the lessons learned now.
Reflect on the WOW! Moments
- Summarize a “WOW moment” as you were working on your RSS assignments
My favorite WOW moment was working with Lorna Peralta. As well as working with the students on this activity, I got a chance to work with the Instructor of Record – Lorna. Lorna was recently elected to Department Chair of the Library. I have never worked with her closely before, so this opportunity allowed me a way to get to know her management style in a non-threatening way. That was totally unexpected and a complete delight.
- What did you learn from the “WOW moment”?
I learned how to communicate and work better with my soon–to–be boss in a way that would have never have happened without this opportunity. That was/is priceless!
- What did your students learn from the “WOW moment”?
The students got to see their instructors working with other instructors across disciplines throughout the campus. Anything that brings together peers is a learning opportunity.
- How might you facilitate having another “WOW moment” in the future?
By continuing to participate in the FPLC experience, I will be able to meet, discuss and share ideas with my fellow instructors and peers, leading to increased ways to reach the students and help them develop new technology skills.
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