Post 7

I believe Blogger can be a very useful tool within the classroom not just for myself, but also for students. I can use it as a way to keep my students up to date with upcoming assignments, notes from the day in class, and important dates to keep in mind such as due dates. My students can use it as a way to learn more about blogging and online writing as opposed to always writing papers. It can also be used as a daily journal type of assignment for students to use as a sort of "quick write" assignment to keep information in their head and to let me know if everything is getting across alright. Technology is becoming so vital in our society that I believe it is imperative to begin teaching students the different formats of academic technology, and a blog can really be a great tool for them to learn how to utilize.

Post #6

Google Reader is an incredibly convenient and helpful tool now as a student, and I believe that it will still be as helpful and relevant in my professional career moving forward. It's a very useful and easy to manage tool that keeps me updated with so much information. I'm not generally one who goes out of my way to check up on the U.S. Department of Education or even The Riverfront Times, but this is an easy way to check up and manage all of that content. It may be an overwhelming amount of information sometimes, but it will be nice to have all of this relevant content to just scroll through some days. As stated in an earlier post, I am a member of NCTE and subscribe to their newsletter, so most of the information posted on their feed I am already aware of. However, it will be nice to have it all here in chronological order to quickly pick out. Google Reader can also be utilized for my students as a way to follow certain feeds for a research paper or some other research based assignment.

Post #5

There wasn't much information I encountered from the articles that I read that really disconnected with what I knew from my future career field. Throughout the initial articles that I read through I honestly didn't find anything that argued against with what I knew. However, after doing some more digging I found an article from the U.S. Department of Education on No Child Left Behind that disconnected from information that I knew. I was under the impression that NCLB was very set in stone and how it was set up was just how it was. However, this article I read, entitled "Obama Administration Approves Idaho's Request for NCLB Flexibility". According to this article, as long as the state of Idaho sets up a state-developed plan for all public schools which will prepare students for college and beyond, then it may be used as opposed to the strict guidelines of No Child Left Behind. I was unaware that these changes could be made, but I am in support of it. No Child Left Behind has been a struggle for many teachers, and while it is great in theory it just has never seemed to materialize as so many of us have hoped.

Office, P. (2012, October 17). Obama administration approves idaho's request for nclb flexibility. Retrieved from http://www.ed.gov/news/press-releases/obama-administration-approves-idahos-request-nclb-flexibility

Post 4

A handful of the articles in my RSS Feed definitely already match up with information I already was aware of. Being a member of NCTE, I receive a newsletter in the mail as well as online from them, and many of these articles I had already glanced through and/or read. The feed does offer some more instant updates and kept neatly in chronological order that can help me go back to something or see some instant information which is definitely cool. However, a lot of the information about what's happening with the NCTE, such as promoting literacy with the upcoming election and an article on close reading and working to improve your students critical reading skills. Additionally, a lot of the information in the Riverfront Times feed was about local elections that I had already done prior research into, most notably the Senate race between Claire McCaskill and Todd Akin. However, in many of these articles that had information I already knew, some of them offered new insights or details that helped to "fill in the cracks".

Post #3

The most relevant "new" information to me was from the NCTE feed about the "Teen Read Week". First off, I was completely unaware of a "Teen Read Week", but now I know that the third week of October is a time to celebrate reading and promote it amongst your teenage students. There were many lesson plan and reading ideas that this article expressed such as many different ways to teach Shakespeare and "Utilizing Film In The Classroom" that transcends past just "Teen Read Week" and can be used annually for your classes.

Some more new information came from my favorite article I read, which was the article on Student Loan Repayment. I honestly had no idea how the repayment of student loans went on, but this definitely helped give me an idea of the process. It broke it down to a very simplified set of alternative payment plans, and each one seemed reasonable.

Post #2

I chose the RSS Feeds to subscribe to based off of my interests as a student and as a professional. There are four different feeds that I am subscribed to, the U.S. Department of Education, the National Council of Teachers of Engish, The Riverfront Times, and the University News (of Saint Louis University). The first two are directly correlational to my future professional field of a high school English teacher, (not to mention the fact that I already belong to the NCTE). The last two interested me more due to them discussing events that are relevant to my life as a collegiate student here in St. Louis, at Saint Louis University. In regards to the actual articles that I chose to read, I basically scrolled through my feed until things caught my eye. The way they would catch my eye would be if they were relevant to my interests or if I found the information practical or helpful to me in some way.

Post #1

I followed two major tags within my RSS feed for this assignment, the U.S. Department of Education as well as the National Council of Teachers of English. They both are relevant to my studies and future career, and both had a nice amount of posts per week. A lot of the information in the Department of Education feed had to do with the election, and it definitely helped me get a clearer understanding of what both parties hoped to accomplish with education if they were to be elected. Apart from the election, there was a lot of information on dealing with student loans, which I of course am very interested in learning more about.

The first article that I read was one that definitely caught my attention, and turned out to be the most useful to me. Through the Department of Education tag, I found this article from their official blog that was entitled "Which Student Loan Repayment Plan Should You Choose?". Seeing as I will be graduating (hopefully) in a year and a half, this is very relevant information to me. This article focused on summarizing the six main repayment plans for student loans, the standard repayment plan, graduated repayment plan, extended repayment plan, income-based repayment plan, income-contingent repayment plan, and finally the income-sensitive repayment plan. This may seem like a large amount of information to take in at once, but this article really does a great job of breaking it all down. While each plan has its shares of pros and cons, I believe that I will personally stick with the traditional standard repayment plan. Paying at least $50 per month for up to ten years is something that is definitely manageable and not as terrifying as I was expecting loan repayments to be. This article definitely helped calm some of my nerves as a student anticipating my graduation and loan payments within the next couple years.

The National Council of Teachers of English feed was also full of some very interesting and practical information for me, but the amount of content was a little bit less than that of the Department of Education. Most of these posts were just updating members about what's new and upcoming for the NCTE. However, there was one post in particular that I found very interesting, which was entitled "Celebrate Teen Read Week". This article presented a bunch of ideas and suggestions on how to best celebrate this week in your classroom. There were a handful of suggested texts that can carry into lesson plans like informational texts, film in the classroom, and Shakespeare, along with a handful of other potential lessons.

The other two feeds that I subscribed to were The University News to keep up to date here at Saint Louis University as well as the Riverfront Times for everything going on in the city of St. Louis. The article from both of these feeds that I found the most interesting and practical was just a simple blog about the upcoming election. It held information on polling places, times, the ID needed, and other general information of the sort.

Phillips, N. (2012, November 06). Where to vote, what id you need. Retrieved from http://blogs.riverfronttimes.com/dailyrft/2012/11/missouri_find_polling_station_id_requirements.php

Student Aid, F. (2012, October 24). 3 things to do during your student loan grace period. Retrieved from http://www.ed.gov/blog/2012/10/3-things-to-do-during-your-student-loan-grace-period/

Student Aid, F. (2012, November 02). Which student loan repayment plan should you choose?. Retrieved from http://www.ed.gov/blog/2012/11/which-student-loan-repayment-plan-should-you-choose/

Traina, T. (2012, November 02). Dumb jocks? not at slu. Retrieved from http://unewsonline.com/2012/11/02/dumb-jocks-not-at-slu/

Lori. (2012, October 09). Celebrate teen read week!. (Retrieved from http://www.ncte.org/newsletter/ideas