RSS

After using Bloglines and Google Reader, I must say the ease of use of RSS was very satisfying. Using RSS eliminates all of the bookmarking and searching each time you want to visit a topic online. I was familiar with the idea of RSS as I have it attached to the NHS web page I created on the portal last year. I probably didn’t realize what an incredible tool it was designed to be until I completed all the reading for this particular part of our course. I love it when the light bulb gets a little brighter!! :>)

As I worked with the RSS tool online it reminded me of the alerts we set for our purchased journals on the library links for our staff and student body. We have spent hours training the students and the teachers how to set an alert for a topic(s) in one or more of the professional journals of their choice. I know the ones that choose to use it must find it as beneficial as I have. As new articles are posted, the notice is sent to their email in this case rather than online.

With the advanced technology taking place in cell phones, ipods, etc – we are able to get updated information any place and at any time! The RSS technology is a perfect fit for our kids to use when researching topics for papers, etc but also for notifications of new information provided by their teachers. I think it will just take time and practice to make it happen. As some become more familiar and use it more, it will continue to spread throughout. I love that I can be a part of the “spreading” process [no Thanksgiving turkey jokes here, Shawn!!].

Hello World!

Those two little words, Hello World, make me grasp the ENORMITY of posting on my new blogs! Those two little words speak – no, they SHOUT – the essence of creating and posting for the entire world to view, read, critique and understand all that will be written here. I love it!! Here I go…..

I created a blog on all four sites. I really felt at ease with Blogger because I had visited and created there previously. The site is very user friendly and easy to understand. Learnerblogs.org and wordpress.com were not difficult either, but I was stuck on 21publish for a long time trying to get past the top layer. I felt the directions there were not very clear and took much more time to develop a site.

If I were to choose one to use one with a class I believe the Learnerblog.com lends itself to that audience very nicely. The tutorials and features would enhance the learning experience for students and allow them to be creative individually. All of the blogs on the site are education based and seemed like it had a helping, positive tone. To allow students to blog without guidelines would be a prescription for trouble! I think they should be allowed use their own creativity when setting up their site as far as themes go, but they would need some guidance on content. They essentially should be taught some things about online etiquette. These would possibly include
-Use of acceptable sentence structure [no texting language, etc]
-Respect of others with regard to gender, race, etc.
-Allow time to write, re-write – and edit some more!

Overall, I really like the world of blogging but what I don’t like is the fact that you can work for hours and hours and hours – to finally have a single page of text. :>)