Chapter 2

Ok, let me start by acting selfish and say that chapter 2 was as boring as boring can get to me. I’ve been working with computers since I was 8 and all the information that Hicks gave here is old news to me and include things I’ve been doing years before the book came out. Unfortunately many people have not been exposed to RSS or blogs however and what Hicks does in this chapter is great for people new with computers, however if you know what a blog and RSS feeds are then it’s a big SKIP. Now to talk about the content and how Hicks explained it, I think he did a great job. He really talked a lot about RSS feeds and it is something he should. Having an application or website that can compile tons of information from various websites is very useful, BUT most sites that do use RSS are probably not ones that can be used for resource pages as the whole reliability thing comes into question. Speaking of reliability, Wikipedia is a site that needs recognition! They have resources lists and site passages from other places. It has more information than many websites and articles, yet teachers hate it. It’s as reliable as the essay I write so maybe teachers need to realize that. Anyways… one of the ideas I liked most in this chapter was Hicks talking about blogs and how they can be used as a digital notebook. How great is that idea! We’d save trees, can have our students share their writing in a mouse click, and it’s backed up forever! I never thought of using blogs as a notebook for writing in a classroom, but I’m in love with the idea and will definitely use it in my classroom. Last, but not least. I should talk about social bookmarking, something that is finally catching on. Sharing bookmarks with friends is great, but it’s even better when you can annotate them with your own thought and ideas. This is great for a classroom to share thoughts and ideas about an article or news story. The only problem I see with this is that it will NEVER catch on unless Mozilla or Microsoft adds it as a feature to their browsers. People won’t get the toolbar, actually people probably haven’t even heard of the toolbars and won’t until Mozilla adds it. I have found that with computers unless its right there for your use than most people won’t use it. So social bookmarking can only succeed when the browsers add it as their own feature. Chapter 2 was boring to me only because I know computers. For someone just getting to know what a computer can really do and what’s out on the web it’s a great read with good information and ideas.

-Jimmy