Tag Archives: RSS

Finding teachers to follow

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I know I left you last day with the task of selecting an RSS reader that suites your tastes and in addition I provided a single link to an extensive A-Z list of education-related blogs, but I thought I would share a few more useful sites I have found to help you connect with teachers that you may want to add to your RSS.

Richardson recommends using Google Blog Search. This will allow you to search the world of blogs using Google’s extensive search capabilities.

Teacher Lingo has a great search function http://teacherlingo.com/blogs/teachers.aspx

Edublogs has a great list of ed tech blogs http://edublogs.org/blog-directory/directoryteched/

Scholastic has a list of top 20 teacher blogs for K-12 http://www.scholastic.com/teachers/article/top-20-teacher-blogs

Just remember not to overwhelm yourself. I started my twitter account a couple weeks back and committed to a small handful of sites as you recall and it continues to grow. The biggest thing is ensure it stays manageable for you. It should’t be hard to keep up.

Lots of people recommend adding news websites to your RSS feeder. I would not do this. News stations tend to post multiple times a day. They are run as “group blogs” which means multiple people have access and post throughout the day. It gets to be too much to keep up on. Remember, this is about enhancing what you already do.  I get my news every day as I drive/skytrain to work via CBC radio. That works for me! But, if you are not getting a daily dose of valid news then go for it.

One last point – once you’ve gotten yourself settled in, and you are following some of your favourite bloggers. Be sure to reply to people’s posts. Acknowledge that you have read their post, bookmarked their suggested links, or even ask them a question. No one wants to feel as though they are talking (typing) out into space with no one listening. So, if you get some good information from someone, make sure you let them know. It will motivate them to keep posting!

 

RSS readers

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I have been dipping my feet into the blogging waters the last couple of weeks, looking for meaningful blogs to follow that relate to my areas of interest in education, and also considering how and why blogs fit into my PLN.

Since researching my commentary topic, online learning communities and PD, I have come to clarify even further just how important twitter, blogs, and wikis are in my quest for a PLN. All will continue to support my professional growth long after my days in the MET program are over.

Will Richardson is a huge advocate of blogs and wikis to enhance connection and collaboration.  His book on Wikis, blogs, and podcasts is a very interesting read; I highly recommend it.

Another interesting read is an article by Bill Ferriter,  in Educational Leadership called “Learning with blogs and wikis”.  In the article Ferriter delves into the issues that teachers face in a changing technological classroom climate and the power that blogs and wikis can have in supporting teachers in their own learning.

There is no denying that educators around the globe see a value in writing and following blogs. According to information on the  Edublogs website, there are more than 1 million teachers blogging on their site alone. If you check out this extensive A-Z list of blogs relating to education you will see for yourself the ever-growing spectrum of blogs that are out there.

No one says you have to start a blog, in fact most, including Richardson and Ferriter suggest following blogs for a time using an RSS feeder.  Ferriter suggests pageflakes or Google Reader but his article was written in 2009 and things have changed. As I mentioned in a previous post Google Reader no longer exists – as of July 1st, 2013.

So, instead you will have to find an alternative. Here are a handful of great videos looking at some of the viable readers I have found: Feedly, Feedspot, Newsblur, The Old Reader, Newsvibe.

Feedly seems to be the front-runner by people looking to replace their GR accounts.  But if you have never used a RSS feeder before you won’t be as tied to choosing one that looks and feels like GR did.

In the end, I  opted to go with Feedspot. And then after a week I switched to Feedly.  Why? Feedspot has only been around for a year and it seems like there are lots of bugs to be sorted out. It got frustrating when it wouldn’t accurately count what feeds had been read and which had not.  What I was looking for was a simple, easy, text-based reading experience. That’s why I opted for Feedspot in the first place (that and it appeared to be completely free – which turned out not to be true).

The thing I didn’t like about Feedly was that everyone else was doing it. I didn’t want to be part of the herd. It also presents itself as a more “magazine”style viewing experience. But  with one simple click you can view feeds in a more traditional text-based format.  I’d like to say I want something flashy, but truth is I just find it distracting.  I am after all an English major and as much as I would  like to say I’m drawn first to the visual, in reality, I still choose words over images. So, for me,  a reader that lets me quickly read what people are talking about is best.

There are lots of great videos out there that offer “guided tours” of the various RSS feeders so I encourage you to look around and make an informed choice based on your personal preferences. Some are very magazine like (Flipboard , Pulse, and News360), others offer a more text-based, simpler reading experience (Newsblur, Newsvibe, the Old Reader). The choice is yours.

 

 

Making connections

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So, I sat down with my original list of people/areas I want to connect with, and compared it to the list of web tools that have been recommended by a host of people, including Will Richardson.

I have concluded that there are a handful of tools I will use to  get and stay connected. Those tools are:  microblogs, blogs, wikis, social bookmarking tools, podcasts, and webinars.

After reading pages and pages of how to create a PLN, I came away with two strong messages. 1. Each person’s PLN is unique to them, and 2. Start small so as to not get overwhelmed.  So, that said, I am going to ensure that I take the time to think through my PLN choices carefully to ensure that whatever I create is both manageable and sustainable.

That said, there is a lot of ground to cover  and not a lot of time to cover it in so below is a list of how I will spend the next nine weeks setting up my PLN.

Week 5-7. Twitter/RSS /Aggregator. During these three weeks I will be focused on setting up a Twitter account and finding relevant tweeters to follow. As well as looking for bloggers who are talking regularly about issues that matter to me. In order to subscribe to their blogs, I will need an RSS aggregator as well.  As I mentioned in my last post, Google Reader is folding at the end of this month so I will need to do some research and determine the best tool for this. (I have been looking at desktop home page options and web-based options as well. I have not come to any definitive conclusions at this point).

Week 8. Week eight will be spent working on my second Commentary which I believe will have something to do with Facebook and the pros and cons of using it as a professional networking tool. (I have to confess, right now I am dead set against the idea of using Facebook as a PLN tool. As a teacher, I feel like there are aspects of my life that I simply want to be just for me – and Facebook is one of them. Not that I am on Facebook that often, but I do have an existing account and it is a social networking tool that I use solely  for family and friends, and I want to keep it that way. At least for now.)

Week 9. Podcasts. I really do not have any experience with podcasts so this will be new to me. Although I do have an iTunes account and have seen the iTunes U option so I at least have a place to start from.

Week 10. Social Bookmarking. Will Richardson noted that he had wanted to go with Delicious but at the time he was going to publication Delicious was in jeopardy, so he went with  Diigo.  I already have a delicious account but am interested in some of the additional features that Diigo offers like highlighting and sticky notes. So, I may be changing my choice of social bookmarking. Truth be told, I have really only been using the bookmarking aspect of delicious, and not bothered with the social aspect of the tool at all. That needs to change. I need to make connections with others who have found great sites and resources in areas of interest to me.

Week 11. Webinars. As far as professional development goes, webinars sound like a great way to connect in a pseudo-f2f environment. I like the idea of it, but much like podcasts, I have no experience, beyond meeting up for live chats in my MET courses.

Week 12-13. This time will be spent creating my Assessment Rubric to be used to evaluate my PLN presentation, finalizing my PLN presentation, and writing my final reflection. Busy, busy, busy!

Let the PLNing begin!