For my on-line class, I needed to look at my classmates’ blogs. My first instinct was to find my teacher’s post with all of their blog addresses in the “Facilitator’s Forum” part of Blackboard. I went there and discovered that only one was hyperlinked. It seemed like too much trouble to cut and paste all of the addresses every time I would need them, especially since it seems like I’ll need them a lot. Then I remembered Google Reader. Hurray! All of their addresses in one place and just a click away. My first practical, real-life use of RSS. I can certainly see how RSS would similarly be helpful to me if I ask all of my students to create their own blogs.
After I finish this class, I hope to continue using RSS to keep me informed about issues of concern to me. I’m already getting news feeds, and I just created custom feeds about topics I’ve been interested in for years. I’m excited about news coming to me. I’m unsure how it will be significantly better than my just doing a Google search when I’m interested in something, but I’m open to the possibilities of what those better things might be. My students will benefit in two ways. First, when I know more about the topics I teach and about better ways teach those topics, my students tend to learn more. Second, when I know how to do something of value (such as go to one place to get a lot of information from a lot of sources), I share it with my students.
