Sunday, June 23, 2013

RSS in Education

I went a slightly different route in researching 'start pages' to replace iGoogle, which is what I use as my RSS feed reader. I started using it years back, as it had a nice look and feel and I was comfortable with how I could customize my RSS feeds. Google is getting rid of both Google Reader (on 7/1) and iGoogle (11/1), so I needed to do something anyway. I used some of my class time to evaluate a couple of different options, namely feedly (a Reader replacement) and netvibes (an iGoogle replacement). I thought feedly was ok, but didn't care for the way the feeds were formatted (tried all the choices...). I then found out about igHome, which was designed by a third party to essentially have the same look and feel as iGoogle. Voila, perfect for me. I spent a bit of time adjusting it, and I'm very happy with the results. It is very similar to iGoogle.

I felt putting together a how-to video for my teachers, and anyone in this class, would be beneficial. I also plan to post this to my Common Core and Ed Tech blog, as it would be useful for others, I believe.

I spent considerable time this week putting the video together. In hindsight, I think I could have made my job much easier, and the next time we do a video, I will either use Jing/Camtasia (which I'll have to buy but have some familiarity with from a prior 30 day trial), or some other choice that allows me to create/edit and control smaller snippets of video. The way I did it  - using a Google Preso and Screencast-O-Matic - was time intensive, and required me to get it 'right' from start to finish. I need a web or desktop based tool (on a PC...) that I can work with in a more 'piecemeal' manner - smaller chunks of video that can be pulled together after to create one complete video. I'll figure it out!

I also learned about some ways to use RSS in the classroom with students,  to help a teacher stay organized as students accomplish tasks via the web, or as a method to collect info as the student is searching for info about a topic. I will be working with one or two teachers this fall and beyond to incorporate some use for RSS, as it had not occurred to me to use it in the ways I discovered.




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