Technology is a Team Effort

Throughout his book, Will Richardson brings a number of ideas to light for the education community as a whole. From Blogs to Wikis, back to RSS feeds and finishing up with Flickr he gives many excellent examples of where these once baffling technologies can fit in with everyday classroom use. However, the interesting idea that is not as visible as his others is the idea of the many different technologies working together. Like a good curriculum map Will Richardson begins with a large idea, and slowly finds tools to add to it throughout the book. A blog is a creative outlet that can be whatever you want it to be, and as a result can be as effective or ineffective as the content in it. Once you being to augment the blog with Flickr, get the students to follow you using an RSS feed, allow the class to create a Wiki regarding class material and link it to your blog, you are now not creating a blog but rather creating a mindset within your classroom. A more in depth review of his chapters and ideals are in the works, however this is just a quick thought regarding his book. After giving it a brief read it really hits you how tightly these different technologies can intertwine with each other. In an ideal world this would create a snowball effect where students and teachers alike would find new and exciting ways to introduce even more technology into the classroom. That is the dream.