What is an RSS Feed?

The next part of my learning is how to subscribe to an RSS Feed in order to have new entries in blogs coming directly to me each day. I went to Google.ca and typed in RSS Feed. The entries I got were far too detailed for me. However, I noticed on the right that I was given the o

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ption of using Google Reader. There was a short video that gave me some pointers. Now I am going to try to use Google Reader and will report as I go.

After fumbling around a little, I realized that I needed to click on Add Subscription. Then I could enter the URL of the blog and click on Add. The name of the blog then appeared under subscriptions. The first blog I subscribed to was Will Richardson's (the author of our textbook). He sounds like a "let's jump on the bandwagon" kind of guy. This obviously appe

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als to me since I like my own bandwagons. In his blog from yesterday (July 6) he says "I’ve got a mental stack of blog posts piling up on a bunch of seemingly random though thinly connected topics on NECC, the environment, note taking with Evernote, my kids’ schooling, the death of RSS and other stuff which I’ll hopefully get to at some point here". You just have to love a guy like that. He has a mental stack of blog posts piling up. That is so delicious. I love the image of all of his thoughts colliding and those neutrons firing in his brain. He continues his thoughts with commenting on something he read that morning. I will enjoy reading his blogs. They will force me to think.

Now my next challenge is to find some more good blogs. For me a good blog would have entries almost every day. In Will Richardson's preface to our textbook, he mentions some educator bloggers. I look up Pat Delaney but can't find a blog by him (or her). However I reach the School Library Journal site and discover Amy Bowllan's blog. Her most recent entry is about a small town library that she visited on her vacation. The archive of past blogs stretches down the right hand side of the page. I decide to subscribe to her blog. However when I cut and paste the address into the subscription URL, it does not work. I notice that at the top of the School Library Journal page, there is a tab for RSS feed. I decide to try that. Sure enough, I scroll down and there is the RSS feed for Amy Bowllan's blog. I use that to subscribe.

Before I go searching for more blogs, I must confess that my daughter, Michelle, took my list of names from Will Richardson's preface and did some initial searching for those people's blogs. Then she emailed me the addresses. So far none of them has actually worked but oh well. (Later on Alan Levine's address did lead me to his blog. Thanks Michelle.)

I found another web log (also on the School Library Journal) in which the author talks about the buried treasure in her past blogs. She suggests a mechanism for blog authors to resurrect those buried blog treasures under four different headings: Rants, Resources, Reflections, and Revelations. She calls these blogs, MEMES. (Reference)


Alan Levine on his blog CogDogBlog complains about online seminars which have not been user friendly or very sociable for him. He says, "Does anyone get what the “social” part of social software is about? People, relationships, proximity."(Reference)

The last blog I subscribe to for now is George Siemens at elearnspace. I think his blog is above my head since he refers to lots of technical matters and 95 page government reports. However, he gives links to all the items he is referring to and is very opinionated. This may be a good reference blog for me.

I am not sure how Google Reader actually works now that I have subscribed to five blogs. Do I need to go to Google Reader each day to see the latest on all of the blogs? I guess I'll find that out tomorrow when I check into it again.

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I also plan to subscribe to all of my classmates' blogs so that I get the latest from each of them as well. It's a good thing I love to read.

Now it's time to quote a song from Sound of Music:
So long, farewell, auf Wiedersehen, goodbye
I leave and heave a sigh and say goodbye -- Goodbye!
I'm glad to go, I cannot tell a lie
I flit, I float, I fleetly flee, I fly
The sun has gone to bed and so must I
So long, farewell, auf Wiedersehen, goodbye
Goodbye, goodbye, goodbye.