A Vlog Worth Viewing

This week we were supposed to find a vlog that we enjoyed and share it with the rest of the class. I was having a hard time finding one that I thought captured the essence of a vlog. It seems a lot of people out there are using vlogs for no other reason than they enjoy listening to themselves speak. After much searching, I finally found one that immediately peaked my interest and my watching of it did not lead me to believe I had just wasted precious minutes of my life.

The vlog can be found here: http://vimeo.com/3071006.

This vlog is a woman’s personal experience of her battle with breast cancer. She is sharing her story “of courage and hope.” Her audience is both fellow cancer patients and those who are fortunate enough not to get the disease. The vlog uses both words and images to get her message across. She wants her audience to know what it is like to go through this disease. She is attempting to increase awareness on a topic that has influenced her life so heavily.

She also incorporates slow, steady, and rather sad background music so as to give her video the underlying tone that reflects the impact this disease has had on her private life. She records snippets of her life through surgery and even her outlook afterwards. This was a very moving video and her openness about the ordeal she went through is shocking. Her video is very effective in getting her story out where the public can see it. She even shows the apprehension and fear that she feels knowing she’ll have to go bald. The end of the video really creates the feeling that you knew this woman in the video. The way the video compiles sounds, music, words, and video clips makes a final product that the viewer feels is genuine and really delves into the issues that come along with facing breast cancer.

I think this is very useful in thinking about having students of mine vlog, or even when I vlog. When using it an academic setting there will be already be a valid reason for using a vlog, but I think the tone is very important in keeping viewers interested. The music and video heavily impact the vlog on breast cancer. I think using music and text in video clips can also be very helpful in vlogs that are of a more academic nature and work better to get information across because they are more interesting to their viewers.

My First Ever Vlog!

http://mediamill.cla.umn.edu/mediamill/embedqt/43912

My Final Topic Ideas

Bubbl.us

Search Strategies

As far as databases go, I would say I have evolved a lot over the years in terms of researching for papers. Of course when the internet was introduced my internet searches remained strictly with Google. As I became older and more of a serious student, the preferred databases I would explore for research included NexisLexis and Webquest. These databases were very helpful, however, I much prefer books that I can get my hands on and actually smell the pages. I have always preferred a visit to the local library as opposed to an online article. I think part of the reason for that is lack of experience. In both of our readings for today it is mentioned how users of these programs have to get in the habit of checking their Bloglines or Google Reader daily. I think I need to use them more often instead of attempting to avoid them altogether in attempt to remain comfortable with the familiar.

Now that I am the proud owner of a Bloglines subscription I can see how helpful it really can be. My goal is to check and update my site every day. This will also help me to be able to sift through and find the valid and credible articles or readings. It is easy for me to sift out credible articles on the databases I’m used to using. When I search for an article all of the information on that article pops up right in front for you. You can see where the article was published, who the author is, and why the author is qualified to write this article. You can even see other articles written by this author with one click of the mouse. That is my concern with switching to an RSS feed. How will I know if the author of an article is credible if all I know is the author’s name? Will I have to do searches to find out if my resources are valid? I think would get easier to determine validity of sources if I was a user of RSS feeds for more than the four days I have been experimenting with it. As with everything else, I’m sure it would get easier with practice.

Based on my experience I think I would teach students to use RSS to gain effective search strategies. This is an example of a place where students themselves will have to sift through all sorts of information to determine which is the most relevant to them and why. Because of all the capabilities of these feeds and bookmarking sites, it is possible for me to tag certain sites that I believe are relevant to the students and be a guide to help them through this learning process. This way students would be involved in their searching process rather than have an authority figure tell them what is and isn’t a relevant source.

Thoughts on Digital Writing Tools

Using a blog in my everyday life is probably a good idea. I agree with the readings that in order for me, as a teacher, to have my students use blogs, I need to understand them as well. I don’t know much about them and have never used one in my day-to-day life. It seems the only way to understand how they operate and the advantages they bring is to use them myself. It is possible that since students use websites like blogs and myspaces for fun outside of school, using them in school will peak their interest. Students might be more excited about a blogging assignment than a formal paper. I think I would use a blog as a means of journal writing for my students. I would like to have then respond to short thought provoking questions that I give them in class on a daily (or maybe weekly) basis. I think this would be fun for the students because not only could you express your own thoughts on your blog but you could respond to others in the class as well. However, I am unsure of how the students would like others being able to read their writing. I think some students would love it, but I’m afraid that other students would feel like they couldn’t express their honest opinions because they know others in the class are reading their blogs.

I see blogs as enhancing means of communication with others. They provide a useful way to share ideas with other students outside of class. I would like to learn a lot from this class. I know very little about technology that is available online or how to use that technology to enhance activities and learning in the classroom. I would like this class to show me all of the tools out there that could potentially help me as a teacher. In terms of specifically using a blog, I hope that with the experience I am gaining from using it in this course it will help me discover the benefits to my own writing. Maybe my writing will be different on the web than it is in a formal paper. I’m excited to find out!