Thing #8 - RSS Feeds

Getting into Google Reader was a rough experience. I had trouble finding the right blogs - many weren't coming up even when I copy/pasted the URL and when I realized this, it took a while at looking at HELP sections and then asking my husband to look at it with a new eye - how to delete both folders and subscriptions. It was all there - but hidden to me. Now, I understand it better and the idea of Google Reader is wonderful if you like a lot of information all at once. Yes, it helps with click time but for me - it's information overload. I could spend hours reading news and entertainment; hours I don't have. But for educational purposes, I see the benefits. It's a lot like the Google Alerts in that all of the information is provided without having to go search for it. Because you are able to share your information, I see this working nicely in the classroom. If the teacher has the email address of every student or if the teacher has a blog set up - this would be an easy way to send the article to every student with the expectation that it would be read or listened to. The same would work for a librarian who stays updated on department issues and sends interesting blogs/pods to fellow faculty. A specific newsfeed would also work well on a library homepage. If every student had their own IGoogle homepage, it would work well that for a requirement, every student had to be a part of Google Reader including curriculum-driven feeds and hopefully a community of sharing and commenting would arise. All in theory - I would have to see how it works in the classroom.