I had read about Rss feeds, but I was reluctant to add to my information overload. I always have to read all of American Libraries Direct, spend the first and last minutes of my day answering /reading email, worry over the growing pile of professional magazines I should be reading to keep up, and listen to KYW “two, three, four times a day.”
However, I bit the bullet and took the plunge. I went with Google Reader because I use Gmail and Academic Gmail and that would be easier to talk my teachers around to using. I added a few “librarian” and tech links, put on and took off Fox News (too much) and fiddled around with the search engines. Then I went to Reader from my Gmail homepage-yikes! My friends list had come alive! All of my friends that use Google Reader appeared before me with their choices—pretty neat, especially the lists from some of my former students and colleagues who have gone on to greater things. The next time I logged in, Google had suggestions for me. They were very good, so I selected two more- one of which was Kathy Schrock. Immediately, I learned from Kathy, “We have just purchased two Kindles for our high school library as a pilot, and I found out a couple of things. First, you can have up to 6 Kindles tied to one Amazon account, and, if you buy a single title, you are allowed to put it on all 6 of them.” Suddenly, I am not reinventing the wheel in my own library—I’m connected to a community/communities that are working on the same problems and discussing solutions. So, that is what the fuss is all about.
Next, I explored some of the links that CSLA supplied for other uses of RSS feeds. Two school websites with RSS feeds were impressive -- the defunct website of Maybry Middle School, Georgia was astonishing in the amount of technology used and Westwood School, Georgia showed creative use of their own RSS feeds. This is something that is only in the discussion stage at my own school.
However, I bit the bullet and took the plunge. I went with Google Reader because I use Gmail and Academic Gmail and that would be easier to talk my teachers around to using. I added a few “librarian” and tech links, put on and took off Fox News (too much) and fiddled around with the search engines. Then I went to Reader from my Gmail homepage-yikes! My friends list had come alive! All of my friends that use Google Reader appeared before me with their choices—pretty neat, especially the lists from some of my former students and colleagues who have gone on to greater things. The next time I logged in, Google had suggestions for me. They were very good, so I selected two more- one of which was Kathy Schrock. Immediately, I learned from Kathy, “We have just purchased two Kindles for our high school library as a pilot, and I found out a couple of things. First, you can have up to 6 Kindles tied to one Amazon account, and, if you buy a single title, you are allowed to put it on all 6 of them.” Suddenly, I am not reinventing the wheel in my own library—I’m connected to a community/communities that are working on the same problems and discussing solutions. So, that is what the fuss is all about.
Next, I explored some of the links that CSLA supplied for other uses of RSS feeds. Two school websites with RSS feeds were impressive -- the defunct website of Maybry Middle School, Georgia was astonishing in the amount of technology used and Westwood School, Georgia showed creative use of their own RSS feeds. This is something that is only in the discussion stage at my own school.
No comments:
Post a Comment