Aggregators not so aggrevating!

The learning activity of aggregators was incredibly useful to me. Without knowing it I had already amassed a fair few numbers of subscribed blogs on my reader but now that I know what I'm doing and where to find it, it all seems too easy!

To have everything on one page, to read as though going through an email inbox is really convient. I also found it quite easy to set up which is always a plus when dealing with technology.

I found the video that Scott placed on moodle to be really informative.



It helped clear up why we need to use these aggregators in the first place. I must admit I was going through everyones blogs to see if I had missed anything new, and in turn getting a bit stressed at the time I was seemingly wasting! As many of you on this course will attest, time is not really a luxury right now!

I do feel that aggregators would be an excellent teaching tool. Blogs themselves have been seen to be useful teaching techniques and with added aggregators I can just imagine the information a student would be able to gather.

I think that as part of my teaching, especially with the later years (10-12), I will definitely use blogs and aggregators as a method of research for them, and for information I find interesting on the subject I am teaching. Think of the paper you will save and then added information you could give your students access to!

Another idea that springs to mind is demonstrating the wide range of information that is available. For example if I were teaching a unit on human biology, in particular the heart, I would encourage my students to do some searching for blogs and new feeds on this subjet. I would tell them to follow it for a month or so and then come together in small groups to collate what they have found. As part of an assessed portion of the course, they could then present to the class this new information. I think that it would be a brilliant way of seeing the different sites and methods that students access on the web, for example http://heartscanblog.blogspot.com or http://medicineworld.org/blogs/heart/heart-watch-blog.html would give the student information from a more medical view point which they could follow compared to http://www.embraceyourheart.com/blog/ or http://www.whomagoo.blogspot.com
which give more social concepts and ideas on the subject.

The use of a tool like this would definately be a way to encourage Engagement Theory, as described by Kearsley and Shneiderman (1999). It would aid students in being more involved in their learning by use of group work with a project base and relating to them as humans (or to humans in general).

Blogs and aggregators would also be a good method of relating Lynchs 8 learning management questions in the classroom. By letting your students blog about what they already know, help them find sources of information for subjects that they want to know and looking at what resources you have at your disposal you have covered LMQ 1, 2 and 4 in one simple task (Smith et al 2003).

One downfall I can see with aggregators is finding sites to subscribe to! I know from personal experience that I must limit my searching online as I tend to get caught in a whirlwind of interesting sties and information and stray away from the subject I'm looking for. This would definately be a shaping issue (DOL 2) that I would address with my students as a common error or pitfall.


References:

Kearsley,G. & Shneiderman, B. (1999) Engagement Theory: A framework for technology-based learning and teaching. [http://home.sprynet.com/~gkearsley/engage.htm]

Smith, R., Lynch, D. & Mienczakowski, J. (2003). "The bachelor of learning management (BLM) and education capability", Change: Transformations in Education, (6)(2): 23--37