I chose to create my RSS Reader page using Google Reader. This has been extremely useful because I already had iGoogle set as my homepage and checked my Gmail daily. Therefore, it was very easy to remember to check my Google Reader since the link was right on my homepage!
I did not know anything like this existed, but now that I do, I really like it. It makes it very easy to view updated information from my favorite education websites. On June 30, one of my favorite blogs, Top Teaching by Scholastic, announced that they will not be posting again until the school year starts. If I had not had this blog set up to my RSS Reader, I would not know this information right away. I find Scholastic to have useful information and ideas, so I also subscribed to the Scholastic Twitter feed. Sometimes there are no updates, but on a few of the days that I checked my Reader, the Scholastic Twitter feed was posted several times in a row, many of which were not useful. I almost unsubscribed, but some of the information was interesting, so instead I can just scan through and ignore the useless information.
One post that came up on my Reader from Techlearning indicated that Channel One was going to become more interactive with learner response systems and professional development for teachers. I commented on this post as I support this idea. I think that this will increase both the motivation when learning about current events and the retention of the information presented on Channel One.
Not long after creating my RSS Reader, I subscribed to MERLOT for CEP 811. So far, MERLOT seems to update the most often out of all of my subscriptions. People are adding information onto MERLOT almost daily. I believe that it is important that I subscribed to MERLOT on my RSS Reader because I am able to see what is added very easily and possibly gain ideas from the feeds that I read. I am a second year teacher so these ideas are very helpful to me. Already, I learned that I can not only obtain professional development from my Reader, but I can also get access to new lessons and lesson ideas using this feature. I subscribed to a 3rd grade teacher’s blog and even noticed a few lessons on MERLOT that could be applicable to 3rd grade. I also learned from my RSS Reader about several websites to use in my classroom to help incorporate technology like Free Rice, Wordle, and Tag Galaxy.
I believe in collaboration with both my students’ learning as well as in spreading teaching ideas and gaining professional development. RSS Readers are a great tool for this collaboration. If I were doing a research project in my own classroom, I would definitely instruct my students to set up RSS Readers. This way, the information from their sources goes to one place and it will be easier for them to find and utilize. Also, I may use RSS Readers to keep track of educational blogs pertaining to concepts that we are learning about like Michigan’s economy or hurricanes. If we wanted to keep in touch with other classrooms’ blogs, we may also use an RSS Reader.
On July 5, I contributed my own lesson plan to MERLOT for CEP 811. Afterwards, I checked my RSS Reader and my contribution was on there! Again on this day, the most updates on my feed came from MERLOT. It amazes me how easily information can be shared and found on the Internet. I have been keeping up with my RSS Reader and will continue to do so. It never hurts to learn something new!
Your students would really benefit from setting up their own Reader page with feeds for their research project. This would save on the web browsing that occurs with normal research projects. Once the page is set up, your students would spend more time on the research content!
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