RSS reader reflections-CEP 810

This is my new RSS Reader page. Before this week I didn't know what a RSS page was. I had seen the orange square with the white lines on it before but had never taken the steps to figure out what it was. I am very grateful that this course is expanding my use and knowledge of the resources available through the Internet.

I added 6 additional feeds to my page. I added The Mailbox Blog, Dogo News, ThePlanentEsme Plan, Reading Rockets-Teaching, 3rd grade math activities and Teach with picture books. All of these websites/blogs will be helpful resources in my 3rd grade classroom.
I choose The mailbox blog because I really like The Mailbox Magazine. I had access to the magazine at my previous school. It had great articles in it and resources to use in the classroom. I would create literacy centers with the materials offered in the magazine. I think that the blog will offer insights from the creators of The Mailbox and other teachers who contribute to the blog and comments. I commented on the blog this morning. There was a posting on Teachers and Lists. I love creating lists for myself and teaching my students how to use lists as a helpful way to organize their thoughts. So I added my comments to the blog. Hopefully it will be helpful for other teachers to hear how I use lists in my daily life as a teacher.
I added Dogo News to my RSS page because it offers daily current event resources for students. This will be a great resource in my classroom because it is a kid friendly website that I can use to gather articles for my students to read about what is going on in their world. I will use these articles for shared reading, social studies lesson, and literacy centers.
I was looking for websites that contained information about picture books and how they were used in the classroom. The PlanetEsme Plan is a website that is frequently updated with new picture books. It shows a caption of the book and then tells a summary. I will use this to find new picture books to use in my classroom. I will be able to read what Esme has written about them so I quickly could see how the book could be a resource for the content that I am teaching. Teach with picture books is another website that offers information about how to use picture books in the classroom. I like this website because it tells a content area that you might be interested in and then discusses good book choices that could be used. For example it has a posting that talks about building a poetry passion in your classroom. It then describes appropriate books to use to help teach this.
I am always interested in learning new insights for reading and math instruction. 3rd Grade Math Activitiesoffers updated math activities to use in the classroom. During my math block I am like to meet with my students in small group to offer individualized support to my students. I have my other students participating in math centers during this time. This website offers some games and activities that I will have my students do in their centers. I added this website this morning and when I checked it again this evening it had already updated and added 7 new math games. Two of the posts that I looked at have simple instructions for students and the only materials that are required are a deck of cards and a recording sheet. This is a practical website that I am going to use get resources for my math centers. I am also going to pass it to my families so that they have resources to practice math skills at home. I also added Reading Rockets-Teach Reading. This is a blog that offers insights into reading instruction ranging from creating literacy centers to helpful strategies for teachers with special needs students.
Having this RSS reader page will make my lesson planning much more efficient. I will no longer have to search the web for hours looking for websites and then looking to see if they have anything that is useful for my teaching. I will already have a page that contains websites or blogs that I have found helpful and I will just have to quickly check to see if there are any new updates. The RSS reader will also help me be more organized. If a colleague tells me about a website that they frequently use, I could quickly add it into my page instead of writing it on a post-it note that will get lost in the bottom of my bag. The RSS page is so efficient that I will be able to turn on my computer and look for any updated blogs or postings while I enjoy my first few sips of coffee in the morning.
I have been checking out the feeds that we were required to add to our RSS page. So far my favorite has been the Webblog-ed. I have read some of the blog posts and I am really encouraged by the conversations that are going on about education reform. One particular posting talked about the significance of individual teachers making shifts in their lives and classrooms that are more driven by technology. This enouraged me to know that my efforts are meaningful and that changes that I incorporate into my classroom are intergral in bringing about a reform in education or at least in my school.
It has been three weeks now that I have had my RSS reader page. I have started to get used to checking it to see if the pages that I am following have been updated. I have been really impressed with the frequent updates of the Mailbox blog, Dogo news, and Techlearning.