RSS What??

Here is a snapshot of my RSS choice feeds page.   I started off not even understanding what RSS stood for let alone what it was and how it worked.  However, thirty minutes later, I was out of control finding tons of websites that I wanted to add to my feeds.  I was sorting my feeds, creating tabs and finally grasping what RSS is all about.  I have to say, I love it!


After finding many relevant teaching sites and technology integration sites, I began to look for blogs.  I searched for a blog that interested me and that I would enjoy following and reading.  I finally came across: Langwitches Blog: The Magic of Learning.  I was excited to get started reading and commenting.  


It was actually the first post that caught my attention.  It was titled, "Unpack, Upgrade and Bring your Lesson into the 21st Century".  The posts comments on how it is not always necessary to use the "latest tech tool" but rather making sure that technology is correctly incorporated and fits into the unit rather than the unit fitting into the technology.  The site also provided wonderful resources to help a teacher get organized on the various media that can be used in the unit.  Click here to check out the templates. I made sure to thank them for sharing these files in my comment.  It makes it a lot easier to understand and follow through with a visual! 


Once I understood how the RSS feeds worked, I tracked the websites regularly.  I really enjoyed seeing all the new updates in one window as opposed to traveling to all the websites individually.  It was nice to see the updates and choose which post or article to read.  The Technology Made Simple site, it talked about voicethread.  It was great to see voicethread done with older students in a totally different context than what I had learned.  I came across such great ideas to build on top of the ones I already have.  


As I followed my feeds over the course of several days, I noticed that many of the blogs and websites were not updated daily.  There were days if not weeks in between posts.  However, even though there may have not been new posts, at times there were new comments.  Certain websites like the NPR: Education are updated almost daily.  Once again, I enjoy that i can see the topics and decide whether or not I want to visit the website and read the article.  (Yes, I judge a book by it's cover and an article by it's title.) 


The more I used my RSS page, the more I liked it.  The plethora of information from the various sites leaves me with endless reading and learning.  But this site can also be used for entertainment, such as keeping up with the latest gossip, news, and weather (and even my horoscope).  I can definitely see myself using this page well after this class is over.  Thank you for introducing me to RSS!