Reflection (week 2) - Dale's "Cone of Experience" and Siegel's concept of "Computer Imagination"

REFLECTION

Week 2

The experience using Blogs and RSS Readers has being really interesting. I’m kind of familiarized using Blogs and I particularly think this resource is very useful to transmit ideas and share information. I haven’t used the RSS Reader before and for me, using this tool is pretty new but easy-going. These resources, Blogs and RSS Readers, are very useful when expanding the horizons concerning where to get the information in a quickly and updated way.

After reading Dale’s “Cone of Experience”, I believe Blogs and RSS Readers could be placed at “Contrived Experiences” stage of the cone by themselves, because they're just resources and the trick is that the individual needs to know how to use them. When teachers give the concepts, ideas and exercises the students need to have prior the use of this kind of technology, each one of the learners would be able to know what tool to choose, how and when to use it and “the Cone may help (us) to choose the instructional materials that are most appropriate for the particular topic (we wish to teach)” (p. 132). Learners will be able to experience the resource in a direct way, giving meaning to their work and increasing the richness of their learning experience. 

Eventually, as students become familiar and develop their knowledge in the use of Blogs and RSS Readers to spread and contribute with their learning process, these tools could be placed in the phase of “Direct Purposeful Experience” resources, because the students makes an interaction with the world around him and makes a connection through other media with other students, trading information and experiences. 

About Siegel’s “Falling Asleep at Your Keyboard” I can say about the concept of “computer imagination” that an “imaginative” educational use of the Blog could be to post an interesting article of a useful topic for the class, so the students could have access and the next day have a discussion about that information in the classroom and exchange ideas about it. Also, by RSS Readers, the students can post comments directly to the teacher’s Blog’s article and also have an updated feedback of what each classmate think and reply the comments. These uses are the ideal of what should be a 21^st Century classroom (p. 2). 

For example, blogs are a tremendous help to give continuity to a lesson outside the classroom, as students have access to the internet and through this source, can access information posted by the professor. Also, to have updated information about a topic that is being studied in class, RSS Readers are very useful because we can have quick access to information. At the end, these resources help education in distance.

Finally, I think at the time that the classroom becomes a place where teachers and students converge in an interactive space, aiming at improving the communication between them and developing new techniques that allow growth in the use of technology they have available, education will be greatly benefited by the use of these resources.