EDCI 5825 Week 6 Reading Response

After reviewing the blogs via Google Reader, I was able to observe how student’s responses changed throughout the semester. Google Reader makes it easy to follow student’s blog posts as they are updated through the semester. It is also a great tool to quickly compare and contrast blogs or find how another student responded to a question.
One observation that stood out to me was how organization can make a huge difference when reading through the blogs. I particularly like how Anna organizes her pages. For instance, when looking at the week 5 assignment for our technology class, I think it is great how she not only organizes the actual writing, but how she has integrated the links to her web pages directly into her paragraphs. The material is easy to read and aesthetically pleasing so it looks very professional. Everything you need to explore her ideas is right on the post. If I was reading through I could simply click on a link to go to the page she is talking about and follow along with her explanation.
One comment that stuck out to me was by Lori where she was reflecting on our technology class and says,” I am left feeling like I have a lot of morsels but no solid food.” I can certainly understand her frustration when it comes to learning this new technology because it is difficult and complex and we don’t have much time to learn it all in a semester. But I would also like to respond and say that even if we have not been able to master these programs as much as we would have liked, the good thing is that we can take the basics that we had time to cover and now explore them for ourselves. As I look at my computer I can see half a dozen applications that I haven’t even touched because I don’t know how to use them. This class has at least allowed me to feel that I can explore the applications on my own and over time I hope I will begin to gain more and more confidence. In short, maybe it would be better to just think that we have been given the seeds and overtime that plant will grow which will provide the solid food.
In summary, I think Google Reader is a very useful tool that allows you to navigate through a large set of data and responses in a fairly quick and effective manner. Instead of going from blog to blog, I can quickly view all the blog posts by just scrolling up and down.