As I learn more about RSS in this chapter, I'm changing my mind on the time factor involved in blogging. As many of us have pointed out in our posts, reading and creating these classroom and educator blogs seems like such a great teaching tool, but we wonder where we'll find the time to track down all these great blogs. But it sounds like RSS actually will be somewhat of a time saver once we identify the blogs we'd like to read on a regular basis.
I wonder how challenging it will be to teach students how to use RSS feeds for their own uses. Or, maybe I'm being naive and they already are! Maybe before tackling the use of RSS feeds for research, it would be a good idea to teach all students how to use Google Reader and simply start with subscribing to a feed of personal interest. I'm interested in trying out Richardson's idea of using RSS search feeds with students working on research projects.
One point Richardson makes that will be especially important for my students (and me!) to latch onto is that the user needs to find an effective organizational scheme, by creating folders and topics. Richardson addressed one of my concerns on p.77 with the tip advising teachers to simply subscribe to their students' class blogs, rather than visiting each one separately. That seems to be a much more efficient way to comment on their work and check to make sure their postings are appropriate.
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I think some of my fear about the "time" factor is real - and some is just based on skill - or better yet - lack of necessary skills!
ReplyDeleteI DO feel overloaded and overwhelmed with information. But at the same time I feel empowered with tools to organize the information.
I know our students have the necessary skills, we just need to give them the opportunity to put those skills to use! This will be one of those times when I qualify the lesson at the beginning and state "you know this better than I do, so we will learn together!" :)