Thursday, September 6, 2007

Really Simple Syndication

This is a follow-up to Becky Ranks previous post on Google Reader.

Earlier this year I read a quote by Dean Shareski who said, "If your website doesn't have an RSS feed, you're dead to me." and I didn't get it then - but now I do and I completely agree.

The use of RSS will change how you use the we, period. Now, we've all heard that before, but this is a large part of what all that Web 2.0 hubub is about. Instead of faithfully returning to your favorite news and blogs to check if there is something new, it all comes to you on a single page. In fact, a number of classes in M.S.A.D. #48 have students post work on their blogs, and the teacher who has the RSS feed of the student blogs, only has to do a quick scan of a single page to see who's 'handed' in their work.

Here's a video from www.commoncraft.com that does a better job than me at explaining exactly how RSS works.




In answer to the question, 'What's the easiest way keep track of my comments and the response to those comments on all these blogs I'm reading now?" The best solution I've found www.cocomment.com This site tracks all your conversations for you. Keep in mind it's still in Beta so a little quirky, but has served me well.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

And here's the other thing...without this feed, I don't find that you wrote this and mentioned me.

I still don't say that you're nothing without a feed but like many of your students who don't do email, only text and cellphones, I don't randomly search the internet. I don't claim it's superior, just what works for me.

joaquin said...

Hi Kern,
Thanks for the comment, we are glad you find cocomment useful. We are working on some new features also. They will be ready end of September.
Please keep in touch and let us know any other suggestions or ideas.
You can reach me at joaquin@cocomment.com

Thanks
joaquin

Becky Ranks said...

Thanks so much for the video and extra information about cocomment. I am finding that contributing to this blog has been very valuable to me as an educator...and guess what...I now had better go and add Learning in Maine to my Google Reader. What was I thinking?