Third time’s the charm! I have encountered RSS feeds in past tech classes in my district. The first time, I was really confused and didn’t get far. Part of the reason may have been overload, as we learned a lot of different Web 2.0 tools in a short time and I was probably pretty fried by the time we got to RSS.
Later I tried it again in a different tech class and understood more, but found I didn’t have the time to keep up with it. A lot of the skills I now have I gained by going back again, revisiting the class or topic, and trying again. There is so much to learn, it sometimes requires a little time to digest and revisit a skill before it is mastered.
I expect this time with be the occasion for mastering RSS. However, I didn’t want to just throw some feeds onto Google Reader as part of an assignment. I wanted my RSS feeds to be things I’d really use. These are the first five RSS feeds I decided to add in Google Reader.
The first feed I added was to New Media Consortium (NMC). It looked really fantastic! The site really focuses on emerging technologies and education. Actually, it looked a little overwhelming, but there were online opportunities for seminars and it looked like a good way to be aware of what is happening on the cutting edge of emerging technologies.
I was happy to find the FSO Digital Arts Community site has an RSS feed. There is some incredibly creative stuff going on there. Zoe invited me to join the other day and it led me to an animation, Azureus Rising – Proof of Concept, that was really amazing. What was more amazing was the interview with the award-winning short movie’s composer, which I shared with my son. He is studying to be a composer, and I thought the interview would encourage him. Aside from that, I have kids at school who would be good candidates for a career in animation, film making, and other kinds of digital arts. By being aware of what is going on in the digital arts, I can offer my students encouragement and point them in the right direction if they want to pursue schooling in these areas.
Next I turned to Discovery Learning. Our school subscribes to this site, so, as a member, I was able to get a feed that will let me know when new media is added. They have so many resources, I would probably not know about new ones without this RSS feed. Unfortunately, others would need a subscription to see inside the Discovery Learning site; however, having this feed will be valuable to me as I use this resource in my classroom fairly often. The site even allows teachers to set up student accounts. These allow students to search the video, pictures, and articles to do research. It even allows students to take clips from various movies to make their own presentation about a topic.
Tech & Learning web site seemed to have a lot of content covering a wide variety of topics concerning using technology in the classroom. In addition to articles, blogs, webinars, and forums, the site has a magazine and a section discussing best practices for the classroom. I am looking forward to exploring this site in more detail
This blog is written by Steve Denbo, who is on the staff with Discovery Learning. He is deeply involved in teaching educators Web 2.0 skills and often presents at Discovery Learning workshops around the country.
Reading Steve’s blog is fun, as well as informative. He is on the cutting edge of issues involved in helping teachers to integrate Web 2.0 skills. He is usually pretty up-to-date about new things that educators can use, too. Sometimes his blog will remind me of something I heard in a workshop, but forgot to try. At other times, Steve discusses the challenges teachers face or new Web 2.0 applications that are just coming into use. He also discusses sites which were not thinking about teachers when they were created, but have become popular with educators, and why.
RSS feed icon courtesy of http://www.wikepediacommons.org
Hi Pat,
ReplyDeleteI'm definitely going to go check out some of these. All of these sound applicable across subject areas!
Thanks,
Jenn
Hey Pat!
ReplyDeleteAll of these RSS feeds look great! I've been checking out a few of them the last few days and there is some really great content out there, especially the New Media Consortium blog. I also really enjoyed looking through the FSO Digital Arts Community. I didn't know that existed until checking out your review. Thanks for sharing!
-Brian