Notes from Joey Chestnut

This is the hardest tinkering blog to write yet.

I think this is because I've reached the point where my knowledge of the web is broad but not specific.  Last week I took the time to explore Google, as well as all of Google's "extracurricular" functions such as Google Docs and the like; as far as search engines go, I have at least one (at least partially) figured out.  In the past two weeks I've also had the opportunity to finally determine how Wikis and blogs work and how they can be used in the classroom.  As a class, we've explored a major photo sharing platform (Flickr) and a site for  web video creation (Animoto).  I guess I should be feeling quite accomplished, but - as with knowledge in general, the more I know, the more I realize I don't know.

This makes it difficult to choose what to explore.  Should I focus on finding sites that relate specifically to the wealth of free English literature available online, such as Poetry Daily or the extensive archive of The Poetry Foundation or Project Gutenburg?  Should I search for more sites to share with students like Born Mag that integrate poetry and art and animation?  Or - should I focus on finding classroom tools that will help me to generate collaborative and meaningful projects for students?  Should I explore how to make a video on Animoto or on iMovie, or how to make a podcast, or how to create a digital story or a picture presentation?  I could make my exploration personal and focus on sites similar to The English Companion Ning that would connect me to the Discourse community of English teachers, but I could also devote the limited time we have to exploring bookmarking sites like Diigo and Delicious and sites for WebQuests, sites that provide rubric generators and digital gradebooks and ePortfolios--

Fortunately and unfortunately for me, I decided this week to explore a site which fractures my knowledge even further.  Delicious is a site on which users can post things (websites, photos, tweets, viedos, etc) from around the Web that interest them.  These things are grouped into related categories, or "stacks" (which presumably attract and form different Discourse communities), for easier exploration:  there's a stack for favorite cookie recipes, a stack titled "Getting Around" that features links to the MTA, stacks for compiling effective ab exercises and stacks in different languages.  It reminds me of a site like Pinterest, albeit with a more general, less Home and Garden focus.

Under the "Education" header, there's a stack for educational resources that could be quite useful in the classroom.  There are also stacks which propose to collect links related to technology in the classroom (and even a stack which concerns itself solely with iPads in the classroom).  As with many other collaborative sites (Flickr comes instantly to mind), users can participate as much or as little as they desire; I was able to access all of the posted links without a Delicious account, though I'd need one if I wanted to contribute to the community as an active member by posting links or comments.  In addition to offering links and comments, users can "follow" Delicious feeds that cater to their particular interests.  They can also "like" a particular stack on Facebook and post the link to their Twitter feeds - meaning that the Web continues to tangle itself tighter and tighter, organizing itself around distinct Discourses, even as it fractures into increasingly specialized sites.  


I don't know how or if this site would be good for students to use in the classroom (I don't know if any of the links would be particularly relevant to what we'd be studying), but I do think occasional visits to the "Educational Resources" stack would improve my practice.  When this class ends, I'd also like to visit the stack related to technology in the classroom to keep my toolbox fresh and to stay abreast of the latest trends.  At this point, I feel like Joey Chestnut - if a Joey Chestnut who's hungry for new websites rather than for hot dogs.  I guess I'm lucky that one of my first was Delicious.