Ch 5 RSS
Whoever invented the "aggregator" was a genius. Rather than searching for the links that interest me, the links find me. They are continuously updated in one area for me. That is a huge time saver! This reminds me of searching for Flights and Hotels on Kayak.com because they combine all of the searches for your criteria from various sites such as: Orbitz, Priceline, etc.
RSS is a way to elimanate all of the garbage from information that we sift through searching various topics of interest. The aggregator brings us the relevant information from a variety of places. While I imagine it gets overwhelming to try and keep up with all of the sites that you subscribe to, I feel this is ideal for student research projects. Kids can use multiple sources without having to sift through pages of irrelevant information. With all of the information that is being streamed and that students will need to gather, I have realized that the ability to "skim" texts is so important. If a child struggles with comprehension, then going through lengthy web pages is difficult. It's even harder for them to pull out pertinent facts. Students need to be able to understand material once they have read it carefully, but more importantly, in the 21st century, students need to be able to pick out key details in a text while reading quickly since the volume of material is so large. Skimming will be a skill I work on more and more with my students.
I like your comparison of the 'aggregator' to the Kayak site. A lot of kids are so much better at navigating a computer and sites than they are navigating an actual book.
ReplyDeleteAlthough I haven't gotten involved with RSS and an aggregator yet, I plan to use this technology. It really intrigues me. I teach Middle School and I agree with you that it could be ideal for student research projects. And, I think it will be a valuable way for students to learn how to skim texts. I can also see the potential for RSS to be a huge time saver, I just need to find the time to get started.
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