Summary/Refection:
This week in class I added several educational news-feeds to my Digg RSS Stream Reader. I have gone back throughout the week and have added the educational blogs that I have "favorited" on my laptop to my Digg Reader. The Digg Reader makes it so much easier to see new posts made by my favorite blogs without me having to connect to each blog site at a time. I wish I had discovered this over the summer when I was reading a lot of teacher blogs. It would have made it a lot easier to find when new posts had been made without having to search each site one at a time. With the blogs now being on the Digg Reader I can quickly scan the latest posts and click on one if I think it relates to me and my classroom.
Besides adding my favorite blogs to my Digg Reader, I also joined two different community groups. The first group I joined is ProTeacher Community (proteacher.net). ProTeacher Community allows you to visit different topic boards where members can post questions or ideas related to the board's topic. The second group I joined is called edWeb (edWeb.net). The edWeb site is made up of different groups where members can join only certain groups that pertain to their interests. The different community groups that I have joined so far on edWeb are "Amazing Resources for Educators", "Building RESPONSIBLE Students", and "TechTools for the Classroom: Easy Ideas to Engage Students." Both of these communities are FREE to join!
Q1. How can joining an Affinity Group be beneficial?
A1. Affinity Groups allow a member to search for more specific topics within the online community for posts that pertain to why the member joined that group in the first place. The two affinity groups that I have joined give me access to communities and board posts that relate to the subjects that I teach and information to make me a better teacher through professional development posts. In only having just joined these two different groups I have already found great ideas that I can bring into the classroom that I think my students will enjoy being a part of. If you're interested in learning new activities or ways of teaching your curriculum, joining an affinity group can help you to find those fresh ideas from other teachers who have tried them out and feel that they are successful for their students in meeting the standards with a confidence in understanding the material.
Q2. Why would the Digg RSS Stream Reader be good for teachers?
A2. If you're a teacher who is constantly searching the web for new ideas and you're constantly finding yourself on other teacher blogs, then Digg Reader is definitely for you. At first Digg Reader can seem overwhelming with how broad the topics are to look at to see if it is a site worth wanting to look at constantly. However, if you already know the names of the blogs that you find yourself constantly coming across in your web browser searches, then you can just type in the name of each blog and add them to your Digg Reader. It's then easy for you to every day or week go to the reader to see what the sites you always visit have posted throughout the week. There is no more having to go to each site individually, instead they are all coming to you. I think that it's a great tool and definitely is now saving me time.
I agree that Digg can be very useful for teachers. I find myself pinning activities on Pintrest all the time that are often resources from a teacher's blog page. Using Digg allows me to directly connect to the blog's I want to view. I can also check every day to keep on what new resources are being shared on the blog.
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