RSS Feed

What I have learned from the postings:
     This has been an interesting assignment. The sites that I chose for my feeder page are sites that I visit on a regular basis. I had seen the RSS feeder symbol before but never realized its potential to make my life easier. Last spring when I taught current issues, I would go to bed late and wake up early so that I could try and stay on top of the latest stories because I wanted to be able to share them with my class. I spent so much time sifting through headlines that hours would go by and I really had accomplished nothing. Visiting my RSS feeder page over the past few days has really helped to keep me informed. In fact I was about to discuss redistricting with my Civics class and when I checked my RSS feeder, there it was, an article discussing how the Supreme Court has thrown out a lower Texas court's redistricting proposal. We were immediately able to link the real world with the classroom and discuss why redistricting is such a big issue.

How I can apply this to my classroom:
     In my classroom I can already find use for the RSS feeder. A major assignment that I have my students do in every course is a "media log." It is an ongoing assignment that lasts an entire marking period and the goals are the following:

1. Students will learn how to summarize and critique others writing.
2. Students will explore current issues headlines.
3. Students will demonstrate their knowledge of course material by discovering the relevance and connection between what was taught in class and the current news headlines that they find.

     For the past three  years that I have done this assignment I have had issues where students find articles that were published over ten years ago, if not even longer ago. Next time I give this assignment I will show my students how to use the RSS feeder for sites like NPR.org so that they can be assured that the story is current. This will hopefully cut down the amount of time they spend simply trying to locate an article and allow more time for them to think critically about how it connects to the topics covered in class and why the story is relevant.

Tracking the past few days:
     Over the past few days I have been following more closely with my NPR.org Economy feeder. In my economics class we just wrapped up a unit on the different types of economic systems and in the end I had students make arguments stating why the U.S. should adopt each type or it should not. We are now about to dive more deeply into the U.S. mixed market system and soon enough we will be to demand and supply. As I continued to look over this feeder I noticed that the headlines pretty much stayed consistent. Really I could break them up into three main categories:

1. Europe
2. U.S. unemployment
3. U.S. housing market

     The interesting thing that I began to pick up on is that depending on the day the take on U.S. unemployment changed. Some days the headlines had a very bleak outlook on our current overall economic situation. Other days it spoke of a moderate resurgence. I saw a similar trend with the U.S. housing market. One day the housing market is not showing any signs of recovery. Other days the market is showing growth. As far as the reports on Europe go, they pretty much all looked bleak between reports on Italy, Greece, and now Hungary. I became a little interested in this and so I back traced headlines all the way through December and saw that this trend has been going on for some time now.

The blog I commented on:

     Now there could have been a number of blogs that would have led me to post a comment but the one I chose to comment on was about a jaguar that attacked a woman in India. As a history teacher I just covered the Industrial Revolution and we discussed some of the negative impacts that it had on the environment and how that translates into today. We got into a great conversation about global warming, deforestation, and endangered species. So when I saw this article I was saddened but also encouraged. I was saddened of course because people were injured, but more so because I know the reason that it happened is because people are encroaching on jaguar territory. I was encouraged though because as I read the story, apparently the animal was only scared away and was not destroyed. I am not sure that this outcome would have been allowed to occur in the U.S.