RSS Page Reflection

After considering the resources presented in our RSS Lab for CEP 810, my choice for an RSS Aggregator was Google Reader.  I felt this would work best for me because I like to keep things simple and streamlined.  Since I already had a Gmail account and am a frequent user of Google, setting up the account was a snap.  A Web Reader style of aggregator (like Google Reader) also works best for me because I needed an option that would allow me to access and manage my feeds from any Internet-connected computer. Because of the nature of my job and my lifestyle, I am frequently on different computers! Email Readers and Browser Options do not offer this flexibility.  They have the constraint of only being accessible from your own computer. The Mashup Reader also looks like an option that would work for me.  I like the opportunity it gives you to mash resources together which is like creating your very own personalized newspaper!  I would need to spend some time (not sure how much) figuring out how to set it up!  I plan to check into this further in my spare time.

The RSS feeds I subscribed to are shown in the graphic above.  They include the four specified in the CEP 810 RSS Lab and others that I hoped would contribute to my own professional development. I enjoy staying abreast of the latest news relating to educational technology and am always on the lookout for specific ideas to apply in my own classroom.

I’ve learned several things by routinely checking for updates on my RSS feeds:

•   Some subscriptions require you to register as a user in order to gain more access to content.  One of my favorite subscriptions is to Digital Directions:  Trends and Advice for K-12 Technology Leaders. I frequently found myself drawn to articles in Education Week and when following the links, sometimes was able to read the articles and sometimes was baited with an introduction to the article and then stopped by the message “this article is available to registered guests only” or “this article is available to premium guests only.”  I was able to become a registered guest for free by providing demographic information and this enabled me to read more of the content I sought.  The premium guest membership you have to pay for.  It allows you unlimited access to the content and also gives you printing rights.  The articles are so good it may be worth paying for!  Did you know there are rural school districts(I’m talking rural- where some students have as long as a two hour bus ride one-way) that have extended lesson time by equipping the backs of the headrests on their busses with DVD players that show science lessons like cell anatomy on the rides to and from school? I learned that from Education Week.
•     The frequency with which content on the feeds is updated varies greatly.  Some feeds update daily, some weekly, some monthly, and some (especially some of the blogs) update whenever their author feels like updating.  Kind of like my blog! Bloggers will simply explain their absence by saying they’ve taken a “hiatus.”
•    When you post a comment to a blog, the author of the blog decides whether or not to publish your comment, and it may take awhile to see your comment posted.  On October 16^th I commented on a post on the Teachnology Blog titled “A New Look at Study Skills” and it took several weeks to actually show up.  I had a sudden “feel like a Rock Star” moment when I finally saw my comment published!  Below is a screen capture of the interaction.
•  The skimming and scanning reading skills we teach our students are more important than ever in this Digital World.  Information overload is at our fingertips and we need to learn to manage it as efficiently and productively as possible.

It has been easy to find useful information in the professional online interactions the RSS feeds provide.  For example, the Teachnology Blog posting I commented on (illustrated below) is useful information for my groups SIG Proposal on using Multimedia in the Classroom. Research is showing that quiet study spaces and studying subjects in isolation are not the best way to help our students retain information. The author suggests that “mixing it up” by using technology to help students study will help motivate kids and offer them the flexibility they have grown so accustomed to having.

Another favorite subscription of mine is Free Technology for Teachers. This feed seems to have the most practical ideas for technology applications that I can use in my classroom or can pass on to colleagues. One posting was about Simple Timer and On Line Stop Watch; sites where you could find count down timers and stop watch settings to use on your computer.  I had just developed a review game for one of my classes and was going to borrow a timer from someone!  Another post was about Wylio.com – an image search engine for Creative Commons licensed images.  This would be a very handy site to use with students when they are writing blog posts for my class.  A third post I liked was about Google Cloud Connect which is a plugin that enables you to synch your Microsoft Office Docs with Google Apps.

I plan to incorporate the use of blogs and an RSS Reader in my classroom.  I am going to have my students each create their own individual blog and post to it in much the same way that we do in CEP 810.  It will be a digital portfolio of their work and will be wonderful to see their skills develop, since posts will be saved over time.  I’m going to introduce RSS to my 8^th grade students by showing them my feeds and explaining how I compiled them.  Then I plan to conduct an RSS Lab with them modeled after the one we did in this class and let them focus their feeds on any school appropriate topic that interests them.  As a daily warm-up activity, I will give the students five minutes to check their RSS feeds.

Before taking this class, I had begun to notice the RSS feed symbol on web pages, but I really had no idea what they were.  Amazing how much power one tiny little symbol has!