Comments on: Should we require school employees to have RSS readers?

By: Chris

Chris — Fri, 06 Aug 2010 18:51:08 +0000

Can anyone recommend a site that collects/writes education news? I was subscribing to educationnews.org, but guh . . . the political bend they have was making me ill and belligerent. Some of their headlines are fairly ridiculous and down-right Drudgeian.

By: Blanca Duarte

Blanca Duarte — Sat, 24 Jul 2010 16:52:34 +0000

I encourage the use of RSS Feeds when I work with teachers and placing them in a Google Site is so easy. Populating them using your Google Reader account is a great idea! Thanks!

By: Blanca Duarte

Blanca Duarte — Sat, 24 Jul 2010 16:51:01 +0000

Nikki, I’m with you! As an educator, parent and very involved community member, I’d love an RSS feed to local information that is important to me. Paper weighs me down and doesn’t allow for me to pull the information when I need it. I think that’s one reason why Twitter gets so much attention. Some school websites on content management systems allow for RSS feeds now. Hope you get yours soon!

By: Ed Bujak

Ed Bujak — Sun, 18 Jul 2010 15:51:26 +0000

RSS is not an edufad, but I do agree that INTERESTED (your word) parties will keep up with what they care about or need; such as students doing what is needed to earn a high grade, parenting parents, teachers that assure learning in their classes, supportive administrators who aid student learning. How they keep up is a matter of personal choice … RSS is one of these means to keep informed. Now who will be providing the content for this feed is critical.

By: Ed Bujak

Ed Bujak — Sun, 18 Jul 2010 15:41:17 +0000

It is hard to force ANYONE to do anything, not just teachers. I just find it difficult to comprehend that some teachers are reluctant to learning (is this a problem when we want this from our students?). This sets a bad example for our students. Paying someone to learn does not work with kids and it will not work with adults. It’s sad when you have to get paid to become more learned or more productive.

By: Ed Bujak

Ed Bujak — Sun, 18 Jul 2010 15:37:29 +0000

Some school districts do have RSS feeds. It is a wonderful feature. You get notified of all school district issues, but you pay attwntion to the half that you care about. Thi sis certainly better than me having to constantly check to see if a particular page has been changed.

By: Scott Monahan

Scott Monahan — Fri, 16 Jul 2010 16:28:26 +0000

No problem – feel free

Let me know what you find out in your network.

Cheers
Scott

By: mark in cinci

mark in cinci — Fri, 16 Jul 2010 16:24:47 +0000

Scott-
Great job on the survey. Do you mind if I repurpose it in my district?

Mark in Cinci

By: Scott Monahan

Scott Monahan — Fri, 16 Jul 2010 15:26:59 +0000

I agree that RSS feeds are one of the most valuable and effective tools for teachers who want to engage themselves in professional learning. I also agree that it is hardly ideal to demand teachers read and stay current on RSS feeds. However, in my school board, the homepage on the browsers at school (that can’t be changed) is directed to a generic start page which most students and teachers just ignore and proceed to Google, their email, etc.

What if the start page was more similar to an iGoogle home page with an RSS feed generated by teacher leaders and administrators, a link to instructions on how to add RSS feeds or use tools like google reader, and links to their board email, school website etc. The benefits are great, exposing teachers to a variety of new ideas, strategies and discussions, introducing some to a new tool to improve their professional learning, and having fresh content on a regular basis (how stifling is it to see a web page that hasn’t changed all year). iGoogle is not the only tool that could accomplish this, there are many sidebars and ways to change the desktop on board owned technology that would allow teachers to at least be exposed to this information. With regard to mandating teachers to read the content, you’ve led the horse to water, if the horse clicks his way over to Google, you haven’t lost anything, but if the horse sees something that captures it’s attention and they follow up by clicking one time – maybe you’ve started something.

I’m actually doing a little research project on this for my Integration Of Information and Computer Technology in Instruction Specialist course and have set up a little survey in Google Docs to see how teachers prefer to develop their professional learning networks (http://tinyurl.com/ictaq3survey). The actual spreadsheet results are at http://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?key=0AgCu-GSTLv5TdGljdWxpeXNOeDQtSC1ZSVVoWW1uZ2c&authkey=CMCl6YsE&hl=en_GB#gid=0) Although it’s certainly not scientific, it seems that a lot of teachers would prefer to develop their Professional Learning Networks through Twitter. My argument against that is that there isn’t enough depth to the Twitter conversations, but I could see using Twitter to cast out links to important blog posts for those who are interested and with the right hash tag, adding that Twitter feed to the teachers’ desktop or homepage.

By: HDoll

HDoll — Thu, 15 Jul 2010 16:57:32 +0000

I agree! As a teacher of kindergarten students who finds one important paper on the floor, knowing it never made it home but not knowing which home it never made it to, I would LOVE that option. We have advanced our communication so far in so many areas yet not here.