Monday, January 31, 2011

February 1st 2011


Google Reader
            For the longest time I have been wondering what RSS stood for and what it did. Many of my favorite websites offered this feature and I never took advantage of it. To start off Kyle and I spent some time watching videos that explained to us that RSS stood for Real Simple Syndication.  The videos also explained to us how to navigate Google Reader, which is one of the websites that uses RSS technology. This website allows you to view all of the articles/posts that were placed on all of your favorite websites, all from one location.
As I began subscribing to all of my favorite websites on Google reader, I realized that I had been missing out on an awesome tool. In the past I would have had to search through ESPN’s website in order to find articles that weren’t on their main page. Now all I have to do u is sign into Google Reader and it finds the articles for me. The best parts about this tool are the ease at which information can be accessed and all of the information that comes up can be individualized, it’s what you want to read or learn about. Since last class when I set up my Google Reader page, I have checked or read article that it found, at least once a day. I am really happy to have started using this tool.
I feel that this tool can be used in the classroom in various ways. In my High School government class each student had to present three current topics articles, throughout the entire semester. Google Reader could have been very useful for helping me to find these articles. This tool would also be use full if you wanted all of the students to make blog posts, and then comment on their classmates. The students could use Google reader to subscribe to their classmates blogs, so they could easily access all of the posts from one single page.
I have really grown to enjoy this tool, and would recommend it to anyone.


1 comment:

  1. Great idea to subscribe to the blogs of classmates. Have you tried that in this class? Also, as a future biology teacher, have you thought about collecting resources, finding biologists who are sharing their latest research, etc. and subscribing in order to share with your students the most current and up-to-date information?

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