RSS

First, yes, I definitely see the value of aggregating information sources; RSS clearly is a marvelous tool for this. Second, I have to say when I read the author's exaltations about being able to track "about 80 feeds of info daily, from bloggers, newspapers, search engines, and more", (bottom page 72 in our text), my eyebrows raised. Then, after reading the next sentence, "I have read or skimmed literally tens of thousands of posts", I let out a gasp. I know there is an avalanche of information at our doorsteps and that Information Literacy skills need to include the ability to sift through this information and to scan; I just don't know that this is an entirely good thing.

One could say we have no choice since it's a fact now that information is everywhere and in multiple forms, so it not always being a good thing is a moot point. However, I do think we have a little bit of a choice, and that we need to exercise that choice so that we keep our lives balanced. There's such a lure to sit around and check information all day that we forget to go outside, move around, spend time with nature and each other, and to breathe fresh air. I spend so much time at my computer both at work and at home; I notice I'm inside a lot more than I used to be, and I'm not sure how much better my life is as a result, if any.

I'm glad there are ways to aggregate one's information and I see the enormous potential in RSS in education and personal lives. I just don't know how much time I have in my life to add it to my plate. I'm going to try it out with something that interests me a lot (backpacking or ocean kayaking, for instance) and get a better idea of how it works by starting small but I don't have a lot of hope that it will go much past that. To really take full advantage of RSS, I would need to read the chapter at least one more time (esp. the last five pages), try the sites that the author recommends (many!), and practice a lot making tags, etc. I don't know where that time would come from.

I'd like to hear ideas for using RSS in elementary schools - not sure how that would work with students but probably 5th graders could do it (e.g. web logs). It might work for this grade level doing research and collecting sources, though I think teachers would have to do a lot of vetting of sources to make sure it was all appropriate, and that takes time. The author's example of creating a RSS feed that brings any news about avian flu to a student's aggregator immediately upon publication is quite amazing. Seems like at the elem level RSS might be most helpful for gathering feeds that discuss elementary education topics to inform one's teaching.

I can't believe that News.Google.com has 4,500 news sources to choose from! Incredible! I also thought it incredible that there are "leaders in indexing Weblog content", e.g. Technorati.com. The fact that it can follow the way people tag their posts is almost too invasive or something, though I can sure see how helpful it is in finding the content the user wants. I really do wonder how people even think up these abilities, let alone design the code to make it happen. What a world we now live in.