Today we introduced Feedly to the kids as a way to cull information from a variety of sources to which each student/group will subscribe. For example, if a group is interested in making a hovercraft, they can subscribe to online sources that talk about propulsion, design, etc. and related articles will be waiting for them in their Feedly stream. Many got the hang of Feedly right off the bat but some were a bit confused by the format and the process for accessing sources. Countless times I heard, "Why can't we just Google it?" Of course!
I tried to explain that they would not want to Google something over and over and try to pour through the millions and millions of returns to find that needle in the haystack. Even if kids employed some filtering tricks on Google to limit the returns, they would still have to Google various elements of their project topics over and over. Some were convinced that Feedly could be a good tool for them (in addition to Googling if they insisted) but some are sticking with what they know. This entrenchment is a bit frustrating because some students (and some adults too for that matter, honestly) will only use what they already know. They will not stretch and try something new, especially if they don't instantly master it. Is it a general lack of persistence of "kids these days"? We shall see as we continue on our journey. We will have a good chance to observe more tomorrow, when we introduce Blogger! - Don
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