RSS review

Following blogs about technology and voice conferencing on my RSS reader was an interesting process. Although RSS readers are suppose to make it easier to catch up on your favorite blogs, I found myself spending more time on my computer because started reading more blogs than I had before I used an RSS reader. I must admit, using the RSS reader was much quicker than finding all the information on separate websites.

What worked the best was that it was a great way to start to learn about something without having to a bunch of research. I will soon be co-teaching on voice conferencing and it was nice to start do learn what people are saying about it and what is currently happening in the field. When I start to research more about voice conferencing I feel as though I have an idea where to start.

I also used the RSS feeder in my itunes to download podcasts about Voice Conferencing. Unfortunately, there were not many podcasts on the topic and the podcasts I listened too were far to advanced and technical for me to understand. Maybe after a couple of months of learning about Voice Conferencing I will understand what the podcasters are talking about.

If done differently, I would have tried to find blogs that posted more often. Some blogs only had a few postings or none at all over the two weeks. This made it difficult to learn how blogs interact with each other. Before picking blogs, it would be worth checking to see how often the blogger posts and only follow blogs that do post on a regular basis.

I could use RSS readers in my classroom by having students follow their classmates' blogs. Students could post their writings on their blogs and make suggestions about the writings by commenting about the postings. Having students use a reader would make it easier for them to follow their classmates blogs without having to search all over the web.

RSS blog II- Skype users increasing

Reading through all of my RSS information on Voice Conferencing has been interesting. Two of the blogs I have subscribed to have posted similar information. Both Skype Journal and VoIP Watch have mentioned Skype's increase in users. VoIP Watch links to an article on another blog called TMCnet. The article mentions that based on a report by Pike and Fischer "approximately 8.5 million U.S. households will start using VoIP for their home phone service by 2010, which would bring the total number of VoIP connected households to about 30 million". That's alot of users. Skype Journal also mentioned an increase in Skype accounts and an increase in Skype minutes.

Both these blogs mention an overall increase in users of Skype. Beings more and more people are using Skype, chances are more students are going to start to use Skype. How have our schools increased their use of Skype for educational purposes? Since Skype is fairly new, it may take some time for teachers to figure out how to use Skype to help student learn. Teachers should start to ask their students their ideas about using Skype since chances are, many of the students may already be using Skype in their homes.

Using RSS

For my Emerging Instructional Technologies class I have set up an RSS feed to learn more about Voice Conferencing. I am using googlereader for my RSS account and am impressed at how easy it is to use. Instead of having to search for blogs everyday and to see if something new was posted, new blog posts will show up in my googlereader. It makes everything so much simpler and saves time. The first screen shot is of my googlereader. The second screen shot is a closer view of how I have organized my information. I have different folders for the various sites and blogs I have subscribed to. Two of the folders are for blogs of my classmates for two of my classes this semester. Other folders are News, Money, and Technology. The blogs I have subscribed to for learning more about Voice Conferencing are delivered to my technology folder. The blogs I chose to subscribe to are ones that are up to date on Voice Conferencing and post often. When there is a new blog to read, the folder will be a darker, bolder blue and have a number behind it. This is so easy to use!

I am also using igoogle as a center to get information that I usually search for everyday. Igoogle is nice because most everything I usually go to separate websites to find is at one location. By to subscribing to different applications that display all my information I usually go out to find in one location. Some of the applications I have chosen show the latest headlines in education and the world. I have created tabs to organize my information. My tabs include home, fun stuff, news, education, books, and Scrabble.

RSS feeds can also be used on Itunes. By subscribing to a podcast, Itunes will automatically check to see if there are any new podcasts. If there are, the podcast will download by itself. I have been subscribed to many podcasts for awhile. It is so convenient and I don't have to worry about missing my favorite radio programs. To learn more about Voice Conferencing, I have subscribed to some podcasts that are about Voice Conferencing and VoIP (Voice Over Internet Protocol). The names of the podcasts I subscribed to are called Blue Box: The VoIP Security Podcast, The VoIP Exerience, VoIP Users Community Conference, and Ted Talks.

It seems like an overwhelming amount of information, but RSS will help to make it easier to learn about Voice Conferencing since all the information is going to my googlereader.