EduBlog Insights

for setting me up on this site and for rescuing previous posts that

somehow had been lost on our anvil site at GSU. He is a “Manila”

miracle worker. I will now be blogging from this location. Please add

me to your Bloglines list. My RSS feed is :

I have had on and off problems on Bloglines with my feed on the anvil

server. I don’t know exactly what the problem was but hopefully it will

be smooth sailing from here on out. We used to quote this phrase to our

kids, “Miss school, miss out!” That’s exactly how I felt when my feed

kept dropping off the radar.

Speaking of RSS, I spent an hour this morning listening to Will Richardson on Learning Times. It was an hour well spent!

It is fitting that I make my first post on my new site about Will Richardson of Web-logg Ed.

He has been my blogging mentor and friend. He is always willing to

share his learning and thoughts and we’re all the better for it!

Will presented yesterday to the Using Weblogs in ESL/EFL Classes group.

His topic was “What is RSS?” Will did a terrific job of introducing

and explaining how it can be used by educators. He talked about the

shift in how we think about information and how this great tool brings

content to the reader. You own it, in terms of how you use it. Will has

a gift of explaining technology in ways readers can understand. Let’s

see if I can do justice to a quick synopsis of what he said. It’s well

worth repeating!

Will commented on the fact that you have full control in RSS. It has two parts:

feeds - the content itself

aggregator - your mailbox

The usefulness of RSS is that you get content if there is something new

to read. You don’t have to travel to each site to check. The

information comes to you.

Next he explained how all you need to know is the address to the feed

and be aware that many other traditional media have created RSS feeds.

Will no longer buys newspapers. All he has to do is collect feeds and

he can create his own custom designed newspaper relevant to his

interests and needs.

He uses Bloglines, a web based aggregator that many other bloggers use,

too. It’s free, it’s easy to subscribe to and all you need to do is

provide an email account and you’re good to go. Will stated that this

has a big effect on how he consumes content. It takes him less time, he

has more content factored in with greater control. Will pointed out

that most websites have RSS feeds on their sites. It is usually a

little orange XML button that takes you to a page where you can find

the feed. When you click on the little orange button you will see a

page with jumbled coding. You don’t have to worry with that. Ignore it.

Just copy the URL and then go back to Bloglines, click the Add button

and paste the URL you copied into the line that says Subscribe. Easy,

huh?

I wanted to give this info for those of you who read my blog who have

just recently starting using Bloglines. It’s a great review. Now, Will

went on to explain how you can use search results via rss and news

search results via rss. Plus, how we all can now not only read what a

colleague writes but also what he reads through tools such as FURL and del.icio.us. You have to listen to his presentation. It’s posted at Learning times at:

http://home.learningtimes.net/learningtimes?go=679449

If you have a LearningTimes username

and password all you have to do is  login and access the

recording. If you are not a member it is easy to

register for free. Just go to http://www.LearningTimes.org

and click “Become a Member”.

Once inside the community area, you can follow this link to access

the recording:

Plus, Will has a RSS Quick Start Guide

on his site that you can download. So kudos to Will and a big thank you

for all you have contributed to the edublogging community.