Ricardo's posterous

The First Day of the rest of our lives

Well, the course is over ... or is it?
 
I am absolutely convinced that it is just the beginning.  I was wondering ... if the course took 20 weeks instead of 10, would I be feeling the way I am now? Had I been given more time, would I be feeling a greater sense of achievement? The answer is absolutely not, for the simple reason that digging the internet and its resouces is an endless quest. There are many things to see, research, explore.
 
I am very happy with the decision I made some 4 months ago, to take the course. I have learnt a lot, produced a lot and I am keen on keeping it up.
 
It was a trully mind-boggling experience!

Columbus egg!!! The never-ending search is over!!!!! RSS in a little over 130 words

RSS is blessed!

Know when you wanted to find relevant things on the net and can't? Your soccer team, current affairs, EFL stuff, blogs, sites, you name it!!!!

You didn't know RSS existed. NOW you know!

Apart from being time-saving, RSS is the solution for those who don't have time to search for hours using search engines. Once you've found what you want, subscribe to the feed and it kind of becomes your personal GOOGLE! Delivered at home!!! RSS is your personal browser.

In very simple steps, RSS lets you know everything you want to know. And that happens with a wonderful plus. You don't go to the information, the information comes to you, babe!
In short, RSS is:
  • Intelligent;
  • Time-saving;
  • It can be customized;
  • The future (or present!) of bookmarking;
  • Practical!

Reflections

(download)

I don't know where to start.
 
I've been feeling bombarded by the huge amount of information we've been receiving since the course started.
 
To be very honest, I had thought the level of the course would be somewhat more "basic" than it has proved to be so far. Good thing is that I love that! I love being challenged, discovering new things, forcing and pushing my brain into unknown worlds!
 
The priority for me now is definitely decoding everything I have learnt so far into a "hands-on" experience in the classroom.
 
How can I use Web 2.0, Diigo, Posterous, last.fm, social bookmarking in a relevant and meaningful way in
the classroom? I'm sure there are millions of options, but I guess I still need some time to digest all the information of the past three weeks in order to come up with good ideas. So far, I see a lot of potential in DIIGO since social bookmarking and collaborative tagging can indeed be powerful instruments both for students and teachers.
 
I've done some research and I found this:
 
Using Social Bookmarking in the Classroom
As an educational tool, bookmarking sites can help students to find ways to search for information other than Google indexing. Students who use these sites will also be less likely to lose links that they have found valuable. Why use social bookmarking in the classroom?
 
  1. Classroom Management
    Students and teachers can move from one computer to another and still have full access to their bookmarks. Students and teachers will be less likely to forget the location of the sites they have used.
  2. Collaboration
    Students can share their bookmarks with their classmates. Students and teachers can also share collections of bookmarks they have found to be worthwhile.
  3. News Gathering
    Social bookmarking sites can also help students to quickly find links to important current events and historical events. Some bookmarking sites allow students to subscribe to news feeds on a particular subject of interest. They can then go daily to this site to find the most current news on the subject.
I also found a good video about social bookmarking. Enjoy!
 
That's it for now, I guess