Response to Homepages VS RSS Readers

I just can’t help wondering what else is possible with RSS readers if more teachers knew about them. I was reading personal homepages VS RSS readers and love the idea of using it in class for class assignments and to display student work. This will allow the teacher to have access to the students work all in one place while not hindering the students creativity. the students can add pictures and links to their blogs that would help illustrate a point or to show research on a particular topic. I would love to use computers in my classes more because that is what interests my students, but I think my delivery of the topic is not well done. I usually don’t get anything done when I go to the computer lab because the students won’t listen or do what is instructed. I feel that I need to find something on the computer that the students will get excited about. My hope, is then , they will be engaged in a learning environment that is both stimulating and rewarding. Maybe, blogging their thoughts about each day’s class may be something to look into. I don’t know, but am open to ideas. We have 23 emac in a computer lab, plus a lab with pc’s.
THe link to the homepages VS RSS readers is: http://remoteaccess.typepad.com/remote_access/2007/08/personal-homepa.html

Educating for global world

As we discussed before, we are no longer educating our students for the area that we live in. In my area, most students that attend college, don’t come back. Their is nothing local to draw them back. In Clair Maple Memorial Address, http://www.downes.ca/cgi-bin/page.cgi?post=41487, she quotes, “the new purpose of education is to create global citizens who can innovate and integrate in the face of complex new demands, who are satisfied and productive individuals and competent and responsible members of their local and global communities… to sustain our democracy and perpetuate freedom.” I feel that this is what our mission statement at school will be soon. The world has given this job to the teachers. I don’t know if this job can been done. Educating students for an ever-changing world for jobs that don’t even exist yet, is a big demand to put on one career. My question is do other countries think this way too? I doubt it. I do believe that in order to achieve this, we would have to have children to adult factories. Our students would have to go through the assembly line until they came out as global citizens. Unfortunately, some may not come out at all. I don’t feel that student can be treated like a product. They are individuals with unique perspectives and ideas to bring to the world. I do think that students can begin to achieve these concepts if they have parents that will help show their child the importance of our global world and an education to help maintain that world. I don’t know the answer to our factory children, but I do think that we need to let them grow with guidance. We can’t hold them back because we don’t know what the future holds.