SJS Teacher

RSS and Google Reader is probably my most favorite topic in the Web 2.0 class. I knew of RSS and how it theoretically works and even used a type of reader (bloglines.com) in one of my graduate school classes. Its use for me kind of “faded into oblivion” after the class ended, though.

Now that I have resurrected its use again, and after populating it with my favorites, I see the advantages of being “fed” the news rather than actively “seeking” for it. It saves me time (for me, the most expensive commodity) while being kept informed and updated on anything under the sun.

How would you use these with students/parents?
I guess if my students kept a blog of their work, then I could be kept abreast of the recent updates of their blogs.

How about for your own professional development?
I see a lot of possibilities with RSS feeds and professional development. I have actually already subscribed to several educational blogs and news services that might be of help to me as a high school science teacher. Again, it’s the advantage of getting the latest news that is the greatest asset of using these feeds.

What types of RSS feeds did you search for?
It ran the gamut from educational and scientific blogs to favorite recipes and such. Like I said, I plan to use Google reader extensively not just for my professional but also my personal development.

What is your favorite/the most interesting feed you found?
That would be the Dilbert cartoons. I plan to add more of my favorite comic strips and/or crossword puzzles to make my “newspaper” complete.

What was easy to do with RSS? What was difficult with RSS?
RSS was pretty easy to use. What I found frustrating was that some of my feeds would not run on my PC but did on my Mac. Oh well…