I have actually been following an RSS reader for awhile (NetNewsWire) that we set up through the Information Technology department. In the beginning, I felt like I had to read through as many posts as I could and got totally overwhelmed. If I got busy and had to skip a week, I would have several hundred posts to go through. Eventually, I realized that I only had to read the ones I was interested in. I also found that many of the posts were similar (at least with the ones that talked about new technology coming out) and I could skim through the topics pretty quickly. Most importantly, I realized that it was all for my own information and learning - I wasn't going to be quizzed or graded on any of it - and that I only needed to look at what I was interested in.
And, speaking of being interested, I love Wes Fryer's "Moving at the Speed of Creativity" blog. I have followed him for about a year now, and there is always something interesting that catches my eye. One of his recent posts was actually a quick little video his daughter took with his new iPhone. I almost skipped right over it because I don't have one - yet - but the extra words "Irrelevant Paper" caught my eye. In the video he talks about the waste of paper he got from attending a superintendent's conference. The information could have very easily been digitized and accessed as necessary insteading of killing the trees it took to create the notebook - that will very probably end up in the trash. We taught a class last week and posted the handouts on the district Web20 Wiki and emailed participants with the link telling them to feel free to print them ahead of time if they wanted them during the class. Several people showed up with them - others did not. And on the evaluation we got some not-so-happy-comments about not having handouts. Sigh...what's a tree lover to do? Any suggestions on how to make this more palatable for teachers?
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If you think of your RSS reader as a container for magazines and newspapers, it makes it easier to realize that you can just "flip through" like you would a print magazine and only read what is interesting to you. Imagine if you could never throw out a magazine or newspaper until you had read every single article! The "mark all as read" button is there for a reason. :-)
ReplyDeleteI think we have to change the way we think about handouts. I always take a notebook with me for my own notes, then I have a place to jot down ideas even if there is no handout. Most of the time, the handouts just go in the filing cabinet never to be seen again (until I trash them). Maybe if you post the need for them to bring a notepad for themselves they won't feel so "put out" by not having handouts! We can hope!
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