My Thoughts on Tracking My RSS Reader

My Experience Tracking the Changes

After I tracked my RSS Reader for a few days I noticed a difference in the amount of postings.   First, some feeds are more active than others.  For example, NPR Topics: Education has several posts a day while the Technology News-CNET News site is updated all day long.  Some of the posts are only a few minutes apart.  The ISTE Connects site is updated every few days, while the Weblogg-ed is updated approximately a few times every several months.   EducTech has not been updated since June.  The two Shakespeare blogs I tracked were pretty active.   There were new postings every few days.  I didn’t notice any actual difference in the specific content that was posted on each page. Each page seems to have a theme and they follow it uniformly.  The only pages I found with a lot of variety were the news sites. 

What I Have Learned About the Content of News Feeds

I learned that the content in most feeds follow the topic they represent.  The MSU EdTech page posts are technology and education related while the Shakespeare blogs are centered on Shakespeare.  Again the news sites were the only ones I found with really different posts.  The RSS Reader pages tend to have many different people making the posts, while the blog posts mainly come from the author of the blog.   They all contain useful, educational, and relevant information.  I would definitely say these sites were made to inform people. 

How I Might Apply the RSS Reader to My Life

A better question is how I am applying the RSS Reader to my life right now.  I am already hooked.  Having all the sites and blogs that I like to check regularly in one place is wonderful. Being able to organize my sites allows me to save so much time. I no longer have to hunt through my bookmarks to find  them.  I like the fact that I can subscribe to my favorite sites and the content comes to me.   Also, the information given on the sites is very informative and educational. Having the ability to quickly look up or research topics will make my job as a teacher much easier. I am already learning and thinking about new things; I have found several new tips to use while teaching Shakespeare from my Shakespeare blogs.

 In addition, I think the RSS Feeder would be very helpful to my high school students.  They too can save a lot of time by not looking through all their bookmarks to find sites and they would have more time to devote to studying.  I can see the RSS Feeder being especially helpful to students working on research reports or projects that require them to search through a lot of information.  Another benefit is that my students will be able to have access to their feeds using any computer, which means they can work from different locations.  

Additional Tracking and Notes 


November 4, 2011 
Today I returned to my RSS Reader and blogs again to see if there were any significant changes in the amount of postings.  I didn't see a difference in my RSS reader, but I did see more activity in my Shakespeare blogs.  There have been new postings almost every day.  
November 7, 2011
I checked the sites on my RSS Reader and blogs today and did not see any noticeable differences in postings. I have read several educational articles and my Shakespeare blogs are a lot of fun (at least for me).  
November 9, 2011
Today I looked more thoroughly at the ISTE site and NPR Education site.  They both offer so much information that I find it a bit overwhelming.  The NPR site focuses on the news while the ISTE focus is mainly on using technology. There are so many articles that I would like to read right now. I like the fact that I can go back and read posts when I have the time, which I hope I will soon.