Thing #6 Feeding the Reader

Before 23 Things, I did not know about Readers and RSS feeds. After going through Things 5 and 6, I have a new passion.... Google Reader. I have a number of sites I want to keep up with daily. Remembering all the links or even names is a daunting task. If I tried to keep a list, it was a file on my hard drive. With Google Reader, the links are all right there in one place, online, and easy to find. It's fantastic!

I added personal as well as professional feeds.

I have been following Cool Cat Teacher. I enjoy her fresh look at the real world.

A new professional blog I have added to my Reader is Betty's Blog. The voice of her blog is down to earth and easy to read. One entry in particular stands out to me. In Technology Gone Wrong, Betty talks about her iPod breaking and the direction technology is moving. I agree with her assessment:

"Why are educators so set on keeping things the same? We are spending so much money just on testing. What if that money was invested in technology instead? Trust me, cutting edge technology would encourage more learning and career building skills than teaching strategies to figure out the right answers on a test."

Students, young and old, expect technology in this day. I think back to this past school year when a Promethean Board in one of my classrooms wasn't working for a few weeks. It seemed tragic at the time. The technology of the Board keeps them engaged, interested, and focused.

To my Reader, I also added links to blogs by my sister and my daughter, Sarah, who is presently in Ghana, Africa. She is a Sophomore at UT. Prejudice aside, she is a great writer and has very interesting things to say in her blog.

In exploring Google Blog Search, I subscribed to "ESL Google Blog Search." I'm not sure yet what that will produce, but we'll see.

I tried to add a feed to http://www.flashpuzzlezone.com/index.asp. When trying to add it, I got an error message. Don't know what's up with that. Guess I'll try again later.

Overall, I am excited to learn about RSS feeds and Google Reader. I foresee both of them making a profound impact on my life. :)

Thing #3 Blogging Tips

Blogging -

In reading blog posts from two other bloggers, I gathered some interesting ideas.

Blue Skunk says we all want to be heard. Leave a comment: "agree, disagree, add, or just say thanks, but make it heart-felt."


Cool Cat Teacher gives many helpful suggestions in becoming an effective commenter on blogs.

• Be meaningful
• Link to your own blog
• Share about yourself in your blog's profile
• Use a comment tracking service
• Teach kids to comment
• Beware of "Darth Commenter" - "They know the psychological stress that unkind commenting can cause in a new blogger."
• Criticize kindly