Thursday November 6, 2014

Earlier today I explored RSS Feeds.  My inbox(es) are chronically cluttered. I seem to get as much, if not more, junk mail in my multiple email boxes as I do in my multiple mail boxes! So I like the idea of subscribing to RSS feeds. I can choose to read when I have the time, and if I don’t, I can just bypass it, and not feel guilty.

I had hoped to keep everything in Google, and set up a Google Reader feed reader. However when I searched for that, I found that Googled deleted that app. I opted to set up Bloglines instead. I found it extremely easy and user-friendly and was very pleased to see that. I created my account easily, and linked it right away to my Twitter feed. Then I searched right within the Bloglines site for applicable newsfeeds and blogs. I found and added apps for School Library Journal and AASL (The American Association for School Librarians). I also added a few related to childrens’ books and authors that I like in my school library. I added a feed from Scholastic, and found TED Talks. I also found a few great ones dealing with educational technology. One of them is a collection of blogs that all talk about educational technology.

I had been pinning blogs and sites in Pinterest. Now I think I’m going to take the time to go back into Pinterest and find some of the better sites and blogs I’ve pinned and look for RSS feeds. Any of the sites and blogs that have RSS feeds I plan on adding to my Bloglines so I can get updates. I have a number of teachers in my school who are addicted to Pinterest. I also plan on sharing this resource with them. I believe they will really appreciate the ability to get updates from their favorite sites without having to search for them regularly (if the RSS feed option is available) – it will be a huge time saver.

I can see using RSS feeds in the classroom when I am doing a long-term research project on a current event. For instance, in a second grade class a couple of years ago, a teacher was following a black bear named Lily that was pregnant and living in a cave. There was a webcam in her cave and environmental scientists and veterinarians were watching her and waiting for the cubs to be born. The students were studying black bears (which actually is very authentic for us as we have a large population of black bears that live in and around West Milford, NJ), and they were checking the webcam daily. With RSS feeds, we could have been tracking sites dealing with Lily and whenever there was updated information, the teacher would have been alerted. There were days that the class would search fruitlessly for information. Another similar project is the Journey North project, when students track the Monarch Butterfly migration, which takes months.