Monday, March 30, 2009

Week 4: Things 8 & 9

Thing 8: RSS feeds.  
This is relatively new information, and having just gotten started by creating a 
news reader account, I haven't used it enough to determine it's value for me....yet. I did 
a keyword search related to my field, hearing-loss education, and there were certainly many items that came up.  I think this will have some benefit for my co-workers and me. One looks like it might be a blog for students with hearing loss.  That should be worth exploring further.
I liked the explanation about RSS; it's fairly concise and clearly understandable.

Thing 9: Locating library and educational resources and blogs.  I've now added a dozen or more blogs and educational resource sites to my subscription list, including some book review sites, educational technology and literacy sites, such as e.toolbox.
I'm noticing what makes an appealing or compelling blog (that is appealing to me, that I would refer back to.  It includes both visuals and ease of visual perusal, as well as if it's in a clear format and interesting to read. I didn't like the Syndic8 search tool at all; it seemed complicated and not visually attractive. The Technorati wasn't much better. I liked the CNN one for ease of finding current info about other countries. I found a blog (teachers at risk) by a teacher who seems to have a similar voice to my way of thinking: it just seemed to 'click' so I'm subscribing to her blog. Since this is still so new, it will be interesting to see where I am in a month or more.....which initial subscription clicks I'll want to keep up with....or hit the delete button!

1 comment:

  1. Hi Laura

    I agree with you about Technorati....I find it not very useful. I have had really good luck with google blog search.... google is going to rule the world :-)

    Before I did this class myself, I didn't get the whole RSS thing. Now, I can't live without it. I could never keep up with all the class blogs without it. I have to be careful how many blogs wikis, nings, etc I add as it can become overwhelming.

    Have Fun

    Ann

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