Real Simple Syndication is a Really Super System

Once again I have found the directions to be intimidating, but the actual process was a breeze. I subscribed to CNN, KCCI, DSM register, NMSA articles and student projects as well as French Blog Polly-Vous Français? I haven't tried the more advanced searches for feeds. I am waiting to see what happens after awhile of getting feeds from these. It wasn't the best day to set up feeds since Michael Jackson and Farrah Fawcett both died yesterday. All my news feeds were feeding the same information. I looked on technorati for awhile, but I didn't find anything I wanted to subscribe to on it. I picked a random one to practice the subscribe and unsubscribe and that was so easy. I did find a blog by a group of French speakers in Manhattan that blog to keep up their French skills. This is something our department has talked about wanting. It is hard to keep my French and Spanish abilities up when I only speak beginning French and Spanish in my classes. I thought this was an interesting way to use the technology for professional development.

I had been toying with the idea of having my kids complete writing assignments on a blog. I thought I might try it with one class, or as an optional way to complete the assignment for a couple of reasons. I see 160 kids a day and the idea of monitoring that many blogs scares me to death. I put in all the different sites I have been using and with RSS, I finally found a way to manage some of this technology. In the text the author states, "Instead of checking out all twenty-five (or thirty, or more) student Weblogs everyday, you could just collect their work in your aggregator using their RSS feeds."(pg. 77, Richardson, 2009) Richardson went on to say that using feeds "drastically reduced my reading time and allowed me to make all of my classes paperless."(Richardson, 2009) This is encouraging, but I really want to know it's possible with the number of students I am dealing with each day. Right now I am leaning towards group work so that would end up with maybe 36 total to check? That leads to my next questions. Will my district allow that? If they do allow it, how do I make sure the same student isn't doing the group's work every time?

While searching RSS videos, I found one on customizing youtube videos to your reader, CustumizingRSSYouTube. I also found a couple of others I thought I would share with you. Why let our students blog? video link out of New Zealand that supports blogging was really cool. I also found a clip about girls being way out numbered in technology related fields, which says to me we really need to be making sure girls are successful and knowledgeable. I think most of the careers in our students will revolve around technology.Aint Gonna Hold Us Back D-I-G-I-T-A-L

I better go check for any updates on my new reader. Enjoy the clips!