What Did We Do With Our Free Time Before the Internet?

 Reading chapters 1&2 in Will Richardson's book, Blogs, Wikis, and Podcasts
  reminded me that the Internet has only been in existence for 20 years. I forgot that the Internet at first was just for reading. The average user could not write or post back to the information given. The read/write Internet that we enjoy and use today has been in use for about 15 years. When I was at UCONN studying for my Bachelors degree in the late 1980's we had to go to the library to do research. I don't feel today's students realize this. Now working for my Masters degree in education I research from the comfort of my couch. What a different world we live in than just a short time ago!

Now with blogging becoming such an easy thing to do, the Internet has made what author Douglas Rushkoff calls "a society of authors." Everyone now has the ability to contribute their ideas. There are now more than 133 million blogs in existence and 2 new blogs are started every second. In my teaching I have visited other first grade teachers' blogs. I get ideas for lessons and it is just nice to read about what is happening in other first grade classrooms around the United States and even some in Great Britain and Australia. I never thought about about actually writing my own blog until taking this graduate class in technology. I'm now even thinking about having my students begin blogging. First graders love to write about them selves and what a great way to get them interested in writing. I know they would enjoy commenting on their classmates posts, and the bonus is they would have to be reading the posts and practicing their keyboarding skills which they will need for the new round of testing coming in 2014. students blogging seems to me to be a win-win situation!