Journal 2: Affinity group and Digg Stream

The Affinity groups are very new to me. I have never even heard of an Affinity group until taking this class. I am interested to learn more about them because I am always trying to expand my teaching range and new things are good. The two I wanted to join frist are The Educator's PLN @ http://edupln.ning.com and Edutopia @http://www.edutopia.org I felt like these were safe bets and I wouldn't be taking any chances on other not so popular Affinity groups. They both look well organized and easy to navigate through. I'm hoping to get to information on new teaching ideas and perhaps some lesson plans to add to my collection. I already starting following edutopia on twitter, maybe I can connect with another teacher who is working on the same lesson. With common core comming into effect, I want to be ready for change and if someone thought of a great idea first, I will be sure to use it to my advantage.

I have actually gone through and read a lot of information through my Digg RS steam account on my phone app. It is an quick and easy way for me to stay up with the information I want to stay up with. Although I do find that I get zeroed in on this information only and sometimes forget to see what is going on in the rest of the world. I may add different RSS feeds to retrieve informtion from to keep me more well rounded. I do think it is an effective way to stay updated with topics and infromation that I am interested in and can save a lot of time from surfing the web and sifting through the junk that can clutter up the web.

Q1: What exactly is different about an Affinity group from other social media websites?

A1: I think that the Affinity group will be easier to get good information from because it will have already gone through a screening process. It is also well organized and you can navigate through the information quickly. I like how it is directed especially for teachers and I can feel comfortable that what I will find will most likely be useful to me.

Q2: What can I do to make my RSS feeds more well rounded?

A2: When I signed up for Digg, I just added the things like I had personal interest in. I am now looking for more RSS feeds to give me an insight to what is going on in local politics as well as what are some of the major current issues going on in the world. That always interest me, but I just found other feeds that were instantly gratifying. I will go back and look for add others to my account.