Blogging and RSS Feeds

The Daily Me.  This is an expression which has been coined to refer to the “collections of news and features that are personalized to your interests” (W. Richardson, 2009, p. 72) through online RSS feeds.  At this moment, I think this expression is fitting because “the daily me” of today is very different from what it was a year ago and because I have entered the world of blogging.

As described in Wikipedia, blogging may either provide commentary or “news” on a particular topic or may function more as a personal online diary.  Before starting my graduate level courses, “blogs” and “blogging” were only terms I had heard in passing.  I have since then created an e-portfolio type blog through Wordpress, which showcases some of my learning to date.  When presented with the challenge of creating a blog for the purposes of this course, I decided to try Blogger.  Not only because it was an opportunity to try something new but because of its simplicity. It seems to be amongst one of the top recommended blogging platforms to use for both personal and education purposes.

Learning about blogs... learning from blogging

Like many other Web 2.0 tools, signing up for an account included choosing a URL address, a password and a name for my blog.  Once established, I could then begin personalizing the design, from layout to background to the addition of gadgets (i.e. bloglist, followers).  Then came the prospect of composing and publishing posts.  Although the first was fairly basic, it was the posts thereafter that posed a challenge.  Although both of my blogs essentially showcase my learning and my thinking, there was another dimension to this one.   Not only were “assignments” being posted directly to my blog, but I was also to write in a different voice than that of an “academic”.  As W. Richardson (2009) states, “[blogs] are comprised of reflections and conversations (. . .)” (p. 17).  He continues to say that, “blogs engage readers with ideas and questions and links.  They ask readers to think and to respond.  They demand interacting“(p. 18).  Demand interacting.  Gulp.  For someone who is rather quiet and accustomed to “sitting on the sidelines”, observing and interjecting by times, this was a hard pill  to swallow.  But for the purposes of this course and for both my own personal and professional development, I tried to stay optimistic and took the bull by the horn.

Creating posts seemed fairly straight forward in that I could simply copy and paste from a word document.  But after previewing others’ blogs, it seemed that links were often included.  And again as W. Richardson (2009) points out, “being able to connect ideas and resources via linking is one of Weblogging’s most important strengths” (p. 19).  Over time, I explored this feature and others, which included adjusting text amd adding images, video clips and screen shots.  Sometimes these features could be easily embedded in my blog, either directly or by providing embedding codes.  Eventually, this process became easier as I had a better idea of what to look for.

But now, if I look beyond the learning of how to navigate within this tool, there is the question as posed by W. Kist  (2010), “how does keeping a blog improve your learning (or not improve it)?” (p. 61).  Having reflected on my readings and the new knowledge I gained, I not only synthesized the information but also connected it with prior knowledge and judged its’ relevance to my existing situation.  Blogging was encouraging me to stop and think.  Reflect.  Question.  Assess. Make decisions.  Make plans.  It was taking me in a new (hopefully better) direction.  And then, let’s not forget, the learning I was gaining from other bloggers.

Learning about RSS... learning from bloggers

From the onset of the course, I set up an account with Google Reader.  Google Reader is an online “aggregator” , which collects news and information, otherwise known as RSS feeds, or “real simple syndication”.  In other words, instead of having to search online to find websites or blogs you are interested in, you can simply “subscribe” to these news and information sources and they will come directly to your account.  I discovered that there are a few different ways to subscribe:

1.  Through the “add subscription” feature on the home page

2.  By looking for and clicking on the infamous “orange” icon within a site

3.  Searching by keywords through the Google News or Blog options

It’s quite amazing.  And a wonderful management tool at that.  But then came the question of when and how to find the time to read these updates.  Like the idea of reading the morning paper, W. Richardson (2009) recommends finding some time each day to read the “feeds”.  For personal reasons, I didn’t think this was going to be possible but I did decide to try to make a regular habit of reading during my lunch hour.  Although it often seemed that something would “pop up”, I tried my best to keep up with them.  But then it was a question of “how do I possibly read all of these feeds?”  I liked that the feeds were listed in a column, which showed the title of the blog and the first few words.  This usually gave me some indication of whether this was something I wanted to pursue or not.  If it did look like something I was interested in, I could simply click on the link to the blog and continue reading from there.  Some of the blogs were short and quite concise while others were quite extensive.  Nonetheless, I liked that I could “star” the items (and add tags) if I wanted to read them more closely at another time.  From there I would mark the rest as “read” and wait for the next batch.

As I soon discovered, this format of “consuming” information was somewhat different from that of “searching” for information online.  Although it may not have addressed a particular question that I was seeking information about, some of the information in these blogs was intriguing in that it was relevant to my interests and to my teaching.  Both The Unquiet Librarian and the NeverEnding Search blogs provided interesting school librarian accounts of information including Glogster ideas or videos updating  experiences introducing kindles in the school library.  The Innovative Educator was always providing unique and creative ways of integrating technology in the classroom.  And then there’s The Dewey Divas and The Dudes, a group of Canadian publishers’ reps, who kept me (keep me) up to date on latest kids and adult publications and book recommendations.  But as with many of my encounters reading online, I was often lead astray by clicking on interesting links.  Of course, this extended the amount of time I spent online, which in turn interfered with the blogs I had intended on reading.  This is often an issue for me and is one that I must improve upon, whether it be through self-discipline or acquiring the skill of skimming and scanning more efficiently!

Personal and Classroom Use

When thinking about blogging for personal reasons, I can’t help but remember one blog I came across written by a mother to her daughter.  She expressed her sincere feelings of one boys tragic suicide and pleaded for her daughter to find  that certain special someone whom she could confide in no matter what the circumstances.  And to always remember that times do get better.  Although I thought what she said was beautiful (as did others who left comments), personally this is something I would rather do in person, and if not possible, through a more direct means of contact (email or letter).  And as for blogging my learning, that is something I will have to consider when things become a little let hectic and I feel I am ready to take that step.  I will, however, definitely continue to get blog updates to stay abreast of the current trends that will help in my teaching and learning.

As for in the classroom, I can see where RSS feeds will be of a particular help in consuming information to prepare for our inquiry project, “The Changing Behaviours of the Animals of our Region”.  By simply conducting an advanced search through Google News, I am now receiving feeds from various sources that discuss the effects of climate change on animals. By modeling and teaching the students about RSS aggregators, they may also track feeds that concern their particular animal of interest.  As W. Richardson (2009) illustrates, in order for students to be adept at meeting challenges of the 21^st century, they must be able to “consistently collect potentially relevant information for their lives and careers and quickly discern what of that information is most useful (. . .)” (p. 73).

Fellow classmates have embarked on using class blogs and this is something I would like to consider as well.  Just as I have discovered, "blogging can teach critical reading and writing skills and it can lead to greater information management skills.  It can help students become much more media and information literate by clarifying the choices they make about the content they write about (. . .). (W. Richardson, 2009, p. 36).  But I do have several questions as to how we would achieve this.  Could we manage with only one laptop in the classroom? What would we share on the blog?  How often should we post?  Digitally Speaking is a wiki which provides some great insight into Web 2.0 tools and gives practical examples of how these tools may be integrated into the classroom.   One example is that of Teaching Tips for Blogging Projects.

 What intrigues me the most about blogging is that it becomes a personal archive of my thinking and learning and provides an opportunity to interact with others of similar interests.


References

Kist, W. (2010).  The socially networked classroom:  Teaching in the new media ago.  Thousand Oak, CA:  Corwin.
Richardson, W. (2009).  Blogs, wikis, podcasts and other powerful web tools for classrooms.  Thousand Oaks, CA:  Corwin.