Sunday March 8-14 Lesson 2
This week March 8-14: ‘Feedburner’, ‘Add This’ and ‘RSS Feeds’
We will subscribe to a number of other blogs and ‘feeds,’ and allow others to follow and subscribe to our sites.
What are RSS feeds? I see "RSS", "XML", and "Atom" out there, but I don't know how I might use these links when I find them.
Activities: to sign up for RSS feeds, making blogrolls and for this week's specific readings have been mailed to your columbia email accounts. Postings to these questions are due by Thursday morning March 12 so we can use them in our conversation March 12 evening. Please adhere to deadlines.
1. For this week, questions to respond to are based on some of the questions that come up with respect to creating blogrolls and using RSS feeds. How do they work and what are the benefits of adding them to my site? How can i use them as a classroom resource and to my blog's best advantage? Reply to this question after engaging in the readings and signing up for them.
2. Question 2 comes from classmate Brownie (http://djb44tc.blogspot.com/) who is posing his based on increasing student collaboration in the teaching of Music. Suggestions and responses to his questions and comments posted on his very thoughtful blog should be posted here as a reply:
how can we help one another to envision "collaboration with students to develop a model for online communication and reflection that gives students a more active role in the direction of daily rehearsals."
(please note, the following week March 15-21 there will be no formal lecture/activity for spring break though you may continue to post here and to your blogs)
What’s the Matter with Ebooks: An Update
7 years ago
"For this week, questions to respond to are based on some of the questions that come up with respect to creating blogrolls and using RSS feeds. How do they work and what are the benefits of adding them to my site? How can i use them as a classroom resource and to my blog's best advantage? Reply to this question after engaging in the readings and signing up for them."
ReplyDelete1. On RSS Feeds, BlogRolls and AddThis. Well, I am already a fan of RSS Feeds - I use Google Reader and the Windows Vista Gadget to keep up with them. I also have used a mobile RSS feeder for my PalmOS although I'm in the search for a better one. I'm also already a big fan of BlogRolls. As you can see from blog, I already have an extensive collection of my favorite edtech sites. The benefit to me is that I have easy access to their blog postings - think "Bookmarks" - that I can always check on. I don't subscribe to all of these or I would be bombarded. Some of them I just check every so often. I'm also already a subscriber of AddThis because I want to make it easy for my followers to subscribe to me. However, I appreciated the link for how to add AddThis to every blog posting. I've seen it done on other people's blogs but had never done it. I love it though - just another easy way to get followers! As a classroom resource, blogrolls, rss readers and AddThis type functionality would help students find information related to a given topic - the topic of the blog or website and help them manage all of the information out there.
2. On Feedburner - Well, I actually had a feedburner login so I must have used it before. However, I'm guessing it's been a while though since it asked if I wanted to "move my site". I said Yes although I don't really know what that means. So, I'm all subscribed to Feedburner and I see all these options like Analyze, Optimize, etc.. but have no idea what any of this means, what these services do, etc... And, the help really wasn't much help. Would love to know if any of you have any experience with these services? Which are your favorites? Why? Thanks!
3. Louis Gray - Short & Long Term Connections. This is the link to the actual posting, not his front page - I had trouble finding it so I thought I'd post it here. His question is: Have you considered the type of connection you'd like to have with people? Short or Long Term? How will you manage it when your network gets large?
To me, the way I manage my networks is largely by keeping them separate. As you may have seen on my recent post, I have a separate Facebook account for work colleagues and for friends/family. I have a Twitter account that I use for edtech and another for online safety. Etc... Now, I admit, that my network is not over 500 people but I think the point is the same. I don't really look at my connection as short vs. long. In Twitter, for me, I have the regulars who are always posting but that doesn't mean I ignore one-offs if they have something relevant to say. You can get yourself crazy looking at your network through things like TweetWheel although it is a good place to find other people to follow. My view is that connections, like friends, are valuable and in your life for a reason for as long as that reason applies.
4. Louis Gray - Social Media: The new inbox? His questions are: Are social networks easier to manage than a standard in box? Is your favorite social network becoming your new in box? My answer is yes and no. For me, like my social networks above, I keep my emails separate. I have one for work, for me personally, for me & my husband together, for school, for web junk, etc... You get the idea. So his argument that I have to go through one email and sort through everything doesn't really apply. That is not to say that I don't get lots of emails at work because I do but I don't think my job is about to switch over to Facebook anytime soon although we do utilize the technology for various subgroups. So, it's not my new inbox by any stretch of the imagination. However, I do find myself going to Facebook before checking email. It's faster than email for finding out things like when my new cousin was born, who made it into the American Idol top 12(13!), birthdays and such. As an inbox, it's ideal for people who I don't actually have a current email for - like old friends from college and people you haven't even thought about for 100 years - but it certainly wouldn't suit me as an email client. In a client, I want to be able to sort/file messages into folders or labels, search old messages, maintain an address book, etc... Maybe this is the old school digital immigrant in me but that's the way I like it. :-)
2. Question 2 comes from classmate Brownie (http://djb44tc.blogspot.com/) who is posing his based on increasing student collaboration in the teaching of Music. Suggestions and responses to his questions and comments posted on his very thoughtful blog should be posted here as a reply:
ReplyDeletehow can we help one another to envision "collaboration with students to develop a model for online communication and reflection that gives students a more active role in the direction of daily rehearsals."
I posted a longer comment directly on Dan's site, but to address this one particular question I'll post here. I don't have a musical orientation so I'm not sure my answer will address the daily rehearsals as much as it will address any classroom situation where practice is involved. I recently read an article called "Out of class-out of mind? The use of a virtual learning environment to encourage student engagement in out of class activities" by Maggie Leese (British Journal of Educational Technology, 2009). I think that the topics she talks about also apply here. She was trying to maintain continuity between taught sessions among the students. While she utilized a virtual learning environment (Sakai) to do it, I think social networking tools would work equally well. Students were divided into groups and given a task to perform during the week between taught sessions. They were also required to present their findings at the next in person session. The students generally reported enjoying the group activity and felt that learning of the overall topic was enhanced. Perhaps, in the case of daily rehearsals, groups could work together on a task to brainstorm (jam?) alternative pieces, melodies, etc... using video blogging or other technologies. Groups could consist of like instrument sections, or a subset of different instruments together. Anyway, just a thought...
I really hadn't thought about facebook and the fact that it won't get rid of our real email boxes any time soon because of the unique features of email over facebook's rudimentary email. You're right that it allows you to pop off a quick note on facebook but tracing and tagging your emails (like google does) makes standard email a keeper. My trouble is, i have so many places i need to check now. Computer has become my new TV... I'd rather keep half an eye on a tv show and be able to read through some interesting blog posts in the meantime!
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteFirst, thanks for everyone's feedback on my questions, both here and on my blog. I didn't expect my issue would become part of this week's discussion, but it is much appreciated. Not surprisingly perhaps, I get a lot of blank stares on these topics at work.
ReplyDeleteOne of the biggest headaches at work (a shared middle/high school), is our internet filtering system. Anything that is remotely considered a blog or personal web page is blocked. I cannot access this blog for example or Louis Gray's blog (until I get home). Other sites have aspects such as embedded videos or streaming audio blocked. The kids of course find ways around this, but it does limit possibilities for classroom collaboration of the kind we are speaking of here.
Is my school being too cautious with its filtering system? I believe the same system applies throughout the district K-12. It certainly makes blogging a more limited enterprise, though as I mentioned on my page, there is a feature on the school's website that will allow for blogging within a teacher's class page. The site is designed by a company called "School Fusion".
Speaking to the Louis Gray post on social networking and email, I have to aggree with much of what Alyson and Robin say. While I can see his point that people may be more apt to check a social network site before email, I don't tend to use Facebook except to check on what friends are currently up to. Email is my primary communication mode. I too tend to keep one eye on the TV and the other sorting through email.
I feel increasingly overwhelmed with email though. I have 2 personal email accounts, 1 at work, and 1 at TC. While I consider trying to consolidate, I like the notion of leaving my work email at work and my personal email separate from grad school email. What I find is I am more and more selective about how much email I open and what goes directly to trash. There is junk email, then there is "junk" email. Apologies to my mother for all those "inspirational" chain emails I never open!
"How do they work and what are the benefits of adding them to my site? How can i use them as a classroom resource and to my blog's best advantage?"
ReplyDeleteI admit that I came face-to-face with my "digital immigrant" status after exploring the RSS feeds. My immediate reaction was "what is this and what's the point".
But later on, I realized how easy it can be for a blogger to control his/her sources of info, to be up-to-date with what he/she wants and to communicate with other sources of interest.