Thing #9: RSS...useful news feeds

My mindset prior to starting Library2Play was that blogs were individuals that just wanted to share personal information about what ever. I have learned during my play time with Thing 8 and Thing 9 that there is a lot of wonderful news items that can be used in both my professional and personal life. I have also learned that the number of RSS feeds available are unlimited and can be very overwhelming if you do not have the right tools to organize the information that you are searching for.

I have spent the better part of two days exploring RSS Feeds and sources for sorting them out and the one that I found the easiest and more useful was Technorati. The two that I found confusing and difficult to use was Topix & Syndic8. The only resource that I was not able to play with was Atomic Learning because I do not have the password to access the site. However I have seen this site prior to this exercise, just never had the time to investigate. I will have make time when I return to work this fall to explore this resource.

In closing I would recommend that each person learns to organize their reading sources by using a reader source such as Google Reader (http://www.google.com/reader/) and create a circle of wise resources that will give you the information that interest you and your students the most. If you would like more information about creating a circle of wise, simply click on this link: http://coolcatteacher.blogspot.com/2006/12/how-to-create-your-circle-of-wise-how.html

(Note: This was not my favorite site due to how it is arranged, however the information is very useful!)