Bit By Bit

Reflection on:
RSS- A Four Part Series (Basic/Advanced)

by
James Gates
Kurt Paccio

I watched this presentation to get ideas on how to teach teachers about RSS (Cheryl and I are getting ready for some workshops with our staff). And here’s the idea that I got: why reinvent the wheel? I’m just going to have them watch the presentations from James and Kurt! They’re outstanding, comprehensive, and very attainable.

The part that really extended my thinking (when watching their presentation) was to move people onto either Netvibes or Pageflakes (or Protopage—which is what I use). I really think this is what is going to grab the teachers that I am preparing the workshop for. Bloglines will help them understand RSS and the power of subscribing to content. But I really think that once they set up their own “virtual desktop”— with their own preferences and content that they enjoy—then I think they will have buy-in. In a sense, they will create an “office space”, a place that they can call “home”. This will hopefully give them a feeling similar to what they experience when setting up their real-world classroom and help overcome the fear and confusion that a term like RSS might have previously inflicted upon them.

Of course where I want them to end up is at Del.icio.us. I want our teachers to be able to take advantage of all the searching that other educators have already done on topics that they are teaching. Again, I think this will really hook teachers to the power of RSS.

The presentation also taught me how to do the “for:” tag in Del.icio.us. I hadn’t previously used this and I can see how this will really help teacher see how Web 2.0 can help them collaborate with other teachers in our school.

James and Kurt: Thanks so much for this outstanding tutorial!

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