Reading may be fundamental, but reading RSS feeds is even more so! The issue I am having with the whole concept of RSS feeds is that they require so much reading. Don't get me wrong, I love to read and find the library to be one of my favorite places on earth. However, I don't like to feel overwhelmed by reading material. It's as if I went to my library got out 3 or 4 major novels and only gave myself two weeks to finish them all. With every RSS link that I click on, I feel the twinge of guilt knowing that I will never have time to read them all. So how am I going to reconcile my aversion to RSS feeds when I know they can help me in teaching? I don't have an answer to that yet, but for starters I am going to try to schedule RSS time (every day? twice a week?) to devote to digesting all the new media coming my way.
I also feel like I am replicating my learning by subscribing to RSS feeds that I also have friended on Facebook, follow on Twitter, placed on my iGoogle page, and receive periodic emails so the same information is brought to me several different ways. So why not just receive the info in one format? I honestly don't see the need for all this duplication. Maybe I'm missing something but RSS doesn't do anything that the other venues can also accomplish.
I agree that RSS feeds are overwhelming. There is so much to read and such little time. I too want to find time in my busy schedule, even if it is 20 min. a day, to read some of the RSS feeds that are interesting to me.
ReplyDeleteI have a planner with all the usernames and passwords of all the Web 2.0 tools I have made accounts with over the past year. I also think having so many duplicating accounts is ridiculous. However, eventually I want to teach a course using Web 2.0 tools and I feel I can learn them better by using all of them in my real life. With that being said...find one that you like, that suits your needs and go with that one. :-) Happy reading ;-).
Yes, the amount of material to go through seems daunting. There so much material and so little time in the day. It reminds me of a skill I picked up when I was in grad school studying chemistry. I had five journals I really needed to keep up with. Now reading through a journal on chemistry is tough. What I did (pre-labtop and online publishing)was to read the abstract of each article and jot down on note cards the ones I was really interested in. I could then at my leisure go back and sit down and read the article. I am seeing some of these ideas comeback to me using an RSS Reader.
ReplyDeleteValerie,
ReplyDeleteI don't think anyone can use all of these tools at once. It can be like duplicating information if you already use a resource page, so the idea here is exposure. I agree, keeping track of all of them can be overwhelming, and I don't! I do use RSS fairly regularly, about twice a week as you said. I know what you mean about the guilty feelings, but ignore them! Read what jumps out at you. Read what you think you could use. I saw that you had an Aha moment, so that's good that you are still processing everything. Do what you can, and enjoy the possibilities!
Val- I'm just experiencing the kind of frustration that you are talking about here. I wrote detailed comments about how I am trying to separate my personal digital life from my professional one using RSS feeds and I went to post and lost it. I got all confused about what profile to choose below as I have a word press one and a google one etc.
ReplyDeleteAll part of the web 2.0 learning curve. At least we are trying!