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S x 3: Select with RSS!

Page history last edited by Joan Vinall-Cox 1 yr ago

Selecting!


Table of Contents



Reading Blogs

Once you've found some interesting sites and blogs, what next? We'll leave the interesting sites for a moment, and look at how to deal with the three (or thirty) blogs you see as possibly useful and interesting for you.

 

How to Read on the Internet

The screen is different from paper, and the Internet is different from books. You read (and write) differently on the screen.

 

First of all, you scan; you don't read every single word. You flow your eyes over the screen until something grabs you, then you slow down to read that, and maybe follow a hyperlink or two. If you're not interested in a post or a blog, skip it. Find something that interests you or that you can use (hopefully both!) The web is not a textbook but a place to scan, search, and occasionally select something to read or watch.

 

Once you've found a few blogs to follow, you can bookmark them in your browser, but when you're not at your own computer or when you want to change computers, you might have trouble accessing them. A better strategy, IMHO (in my humble opinion), is to set up a reader where you can keep all the blogs you follow at one address, and access the reader from any computer, because it's online.

 

What's RSS?

Some explanations:

 

CommonCraft Video on RSS - by Lee LeFever

 

 

CommonCraft Video on Google Reader by Lee LeFever

 

Using RSS Readers

I use Bloglines, because it's what I'm used to, but Google Reader is quite popular too. It takes a while to train yourself how to use either of them:

  • how to scan, skip, and only maybe read
  • how to add and cancel subcriptions without worrying
  • how to avoid non-reading guilt;->

You find the orange (or sometimes blue) RSS icon on the right end of the URL address field

I have my Bloglines link on my Personal Toolbar so I can access it quickly and easily.

 

If you want to keep up with what teachers can use from the web, I suggest you follow my blog, WebTools for Learners at

and find some others using the techniques described here, and set up your own RSS Reader so you can keep up-to-date.

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