RSS: Keeping up-to-date and informed

This posting relates to the third session I am presenting in Singapore on Saturday November 15 at the Hands On Literacy conference

RSS is an acronym with several explanations:

• Rich Site Syndication
• Really Simple Syndication
• Really Simple Syntax

RSS is a feature of xml technology and facilitates the transfer of content from one computer to another.

Sometimes these are called news feeds, or headlines

One feature of RSS is that as data on the parent site is updated, so the data on the receiving site is updated.

This process is called syndication

RSS feeds are received as xml and are then displayed at the receiving computer in html.
Thus 'raw' xml' content looks a little like html with similar 'markup' features.

Click here http://api.edna.edu.au/headline.rss?sector=edna for an example (this may behave differently if you are using Firefox)

Sometimes you are able to use a website’s features to display an RSS feed.
Sometimes you have to pull the RSS feed in using JavaScript. More about that later.

RSS feeds may be generated by blogs like this one
They enable to user to monitor additions to the blog

The text version of podcasts are also often available as an RSS feed.

RSS feeds thus enable the user to select sources of information and keep up to date without having to remember to visit the original website.

The source site pushes the RSS feed out, the receiving end pulls the RSS feed in.

RSS in Plain English: http://www.blip.tv/file/205570/

RSS Feed Aggregators
Aggregators are web places where you can identify the RSS feeds that you want to monitor
You access them via the web from wherever you are
• iGoogle: http://www.google.com/ig
• Pageflakes: http://www.pageflakes.com/
• Bloglines: http://www.bloglines.com/
• Blogbridge: http://www.blogbridge.com/
• Google Reader: http://reader.google.com/
• Netvibes: http://www.netvibes.com/
• Newsgator: http://www.newsgator.com/

RSS Readers
are generally software that you download and then install on your computer

A list of RSS Readers that you can download
http://blogspace.com/rss/readers

RssReader - free RSS reader is able to display any RSS and Atom news feed (XML)
http://www.rssreader.com/
Feed Reader3 – free RSS reader
http://www.feedreader.com/
FeedGhost – Requires Windows XP or Windows Vista
http://www.feedghost.com/

RSS by Email

Feed My Inbox: http://feedmyinbox.com
You type in the URL of the page that has an RSS feed and then the email address to send the feed to. It gives you a "daily digest" of feeds from that site.

Creating an RSS feed is not nearly as difficult as it once was.

• The easiest way to go about it is to create a blog and they usually generate an RSS feed.
  http://www.blogger.com/


• Tumblr is a tool that allows you to generate a blog from a "web journey" and the resultant blog is available as an RSS feed.
  http://www.tumblr.com/
  

Other sources of RSS feeds

• Twittr
  
• http://del.icio.us/
  
• Flickr

Feed 2 JS tool
http://feed2js.edna.edu.au/
This is a tool that enables you to feed the content of an RSS feed into a web page through Java Script.

For further information see http://www.edna.edu.au/edna/go/help/rss_help

Running an Online Commmunity

This posting relates to the second session I am presenting in Singapore on Saturday November 15 at the Hands On Literacy conference.

I've been involved in setting up and managing online communities for quite a long time now and have pretty strong opinions about what makes them work, and what doesn't.
This session won't be so much a hands-on workshop as a show and tell with some opportunity for questions and discussion.

Here is my brief:
Running an Online Community: the how and why of it
Many schools and tertiary institutions are being asked to supplement their face to face teaching with online courses or add online elements to existing courses. How is running an online community or offering an online course different to managing an "ordinary" classroom.
What makes a good online community? How do you strike the balance between instruction and interaction.

I aim to cover these ideas:

• Blended learning
• What makes a vibrant online community?
• What works in establishing an online community?
• What spaces and tools are available?
• How do you keep it going?
• Balancing instruction and interaction

In blended learning

• Combination of face-to-face lessons with technology-based materials
• Classroom teacher becomes a learning facilitator
• This is more than just putting materials online.
  Thought needs to be given to how to create interaction between the participants, how to provide a stimulating environment that provides opportunity for collaboration.

Types of online communities

• mailing lists – announcements & information
• ‘groups’ with files & storage space
• ‘groups’ with storage & variety of activities
• wikis, wikia, wikispaces
• blogs – are they a community?
• new social networking places

Decide which will suit your purpose best.

I'm very taken with the methodology shown in Gilly Salmon's 5-stage model http://www.atimod.com/e-tivities/5stage.shtml and will spend some time discussing it's implications, using the cartoons provided on the site for each step.

What makes for a successful community?

• Personal profiles
• Clarity of purpose, focus for activities
• Activities where members can interact and contribute
• Ongoing stimulation, social interaction
• Shared ownership, commitment,
• existing clientele, common interest
• mentoring
• reasonable bandwidth for management activities

The Role of the Owner
- shared ownership is recommended
What does the owner do?

• Sets the group up
• Defines purpose, layout, attractiveness
• Advertises, promotes
• Assists people in joining
• Initiates activities
• Upload files
• Moderates discussions
• Arbitrates if necessary
• Participates *****

Not an armchair ride
Running an online community whether for students or teachers requires active oversight, participation and sometimes intervention by the owner(s)

Fostering that sense of Community

• Sometimes the hardest thing is just getting started
• Some tools are more useful than others for breaking the ice. They may even be useful in well established Groups
• Use ‘getting to know you” tools
  Members introduce themselves in a forum
  Group Profiles
  Photo Albums
  Chats
  Forums
  Add a colleague
  Frappr Map

Define the purpose of your community

• Whatever the nature of your group make sure that everyone is aware of its purpose
• Clarify expectations, conditions of use etc
• Will you allow OT discussions?
• Provide activities and resources that reinforce the purpose

Assessing vibrancy

• Active discussions
• Things that connect members
• Relevancy
• Sharing
• Growth

Active groups Don't Just Happen

• They need ongoing stimulation & nurturing
• When you start a new group don’t show your hand all at once
• Think about ’the journey’ your group will take, plan stimulating activities
• Take a pro-active role: it isn’t an armchair ride – go that 1 step further
• You don’t just knit together, you also start new rows
• Be alert to members having problems

Tools from the web for your group, website or blog

• ClustrMaps gives a visual idea of who comes to your Group. Gives Group Members a sense of belonging to a “living” community.
• Frappr Map: Add the code from the Frappr website into any space where you can embed HTML code within your Group. Encourage your Group Members to put in their location, image and a message about themselves.
• Feedjit lets you monitor traffic to your group/blog.
• VoiceThread: Allows the adding of images, audio and text messages
• Flickr Badge: a good way of displaying shared events and photographs with your Group Members
• Screencast-o-matic: A free tool that allows you to generate a tour of your site with or without audio. Once you have created a screencast you can leave it on the web and use it from there or download it as a .mov file to store for offline use.
• Odiogo Allows you to attach podiocasts to a blog. FREE to bloggers – a link comes onto your blog. People can hear a “near human” computer generated voice. Also can be saved as an mp3 file

Examples of online communities=where you might set one up

• Web 2.0 Social networking places
• focus on “friends” and commonality of interest
• create your Profile – define who you are
• set up links with others of like mind
• links with other online tools
• forums, chats
• RSS feeds, file upload, ratings
• use tags


• Blogs are usually chronological documents often compared to a diary or journal, written daily, or at least regularly. Once you have posted to the blog you make only minor amendments.
• Discussion Board (or a tool that allows discussion to happen) could be something like a Yahoo or Google group, or an edna Group (which uses Moodle and has a forum tool)
• Wikis are often favoured by teachers because they can be much more collaborative. They basically build up an online booklet. It is not so much about individual entries, but documents that everybody can add to and edit. They can lend themselves to branching documents (like Wikipedia). e.g. Wikispaces, PB Wiki
• Sites to look at
• http://www.pbwiki.com
• http://www.wkispaces.com
• http://www.ning.com
• http://www.blogger.com
• http://www.livejournal.com
• http://edublogs.org
  

Social networking with educators

This posting relates to a session I am presenting in Singapore on Saturday November 15 at the Hands On Literacy conference.

My "brief" for my workshop in Session 1.
Social networking with educators: why is this important? How do I do it?
The emphasis in web 2.0 tools is using communication and collaboration tools to connect with others. This session will focus on where some of these social networking sites can be found and what participants get out of joining one or more of them. What is the potential of social networking for my professional development? This session will look at some social networking sites such as Ning and the edna example of me.edu.au

A word from Common Craft


More Common Craft videos in Plain English on social media, podcasting, RSS, blogs, wikis, social bookmarking, twitter, and online photosharing.

What do educators get out of being part of a social network?

• support from fellow educators, like-minded teachers
  
• new ideas
• information about trends, events, new publications
• professional development, both incidental and intentional
  
• just in time assistance - you can ask questions
  
• the opportunity to "define" yourself
• a place to create an online e-portfolio
• development of your understanding of, and confidence in using, web 2.0 tools
• a wider network of "friends"
• growth of your own reputation
  

Links to follow up:

• me.edu.au: an Australian social network for educators.
• Classroom2.0: a Ning social network for those interested in Web 2.0 and collaborative or transformative technologies in education. This a large network of over 12,000 members with a large number coming from the US. Search for me there. There are 39 people who list Singapore as home.
  
• Ning in Education: similar site to Classroom2.0: a community for those using the Ning social networking platform in education. Look for a block in the right hand column that contains a list of Ning education networks.
• Library 2.0: a Ning network for librarians.
• TeacherLibrarianNetwork: This is another Ning, but this one has a number of defined sub-groups: High School Teacher Librarians, Elementary School Librarians, YA Lit in School Libraries, More Things: Applying 2.0 tools, Information fluency, and more.
  
• Social Networks in Education: a wiki that gives an extensive list of social networks you can join.
  
• Socialnetworking4teachers: a wiki with useful links and ideas.
• CyberSmart! for teachers: a site devoted to interenet safety with advice for teachers.
• Literacy & technology: another Ning, for those interested in the application of technology to literacy learning in the K-3 area of the school.
• Literacy Lighthouse: another Ning community, a place for high school English teachers to become beacons of 21st Century literacy. Join now and share best practices, forge collaborations, and discuss what literacy in the 21st Century entails.This is a small recently created network.
  

What to do

• visit a number of networks and then decide which one (or two at the most to start with) best suits you.
• sign up - usually you have to create a user name, decide on your own password, give an email address, and sometimes you go straight in. In others you won't be able to login until you've confirmed your registration by email.
• usually in the network you will get your own set of pages, with a blog page, and the opportunity to "collect" friends.
  
• work on creating your profile - you can usually add some details about yourself, your interests etc., and add a photo. Defining who you are is really important.
• explore what the site offers, look at the forums, explore other people's pages, collect colleagues, leave comments.
• work out whether you can monitor what goes on in the network by email, RSS feeds, or whether you have to remember to visit frequently.
  
• Always remember that the benefits of social networking for you will depend on your participation. If you "lurk" it is very easy to become a voyeur rather than a participant, and then eventually it will seem less important for you to visit.
  

Making IT Happen ISTE Award

The Future of Education

I have put together a series of YouTube videos about future directions in education.
You might like to direct me to others.

Shift Happens- UK
There are a number of these Shift Happens videos, many of them derivative of each other, but the message is the same.



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21st Century - Pedadogy - Greg Whitby
Greg Whitby works in Catholic Education in Australia and this is one of a number of videos he has made.
His basic message is that education as we know it has to change - it is currently based on a 19th industrial model.



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Change the World in 5 minutes - Everyday at School
An Australian video from Film Australia about what students can do to change the world.



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Education Today and Tomorrow

A comparison of the old and the new.



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Learning to Change - Changing to Learn
The CosN video: a who's who in education talk about changes we must make.



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3 steps for 21st century Learning
What skills do our students need to learn?



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The 21st Century: What will it Look Like?
A year by year analysis of how the technology will change.



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What the Future Cellphone will be Like!



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Computers of the Future
virtual keyboards?? what next?



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The Ultimate Irony
- in an Australian educational setting you may not have been able to watch these videos.

Educators won't be able to watch this video, Greg Black, CEO of education.au, poses a challenge to the 2008 OECD conference delegates regarding the barriers teachers and students face in using web-based tools.

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How well are we doing in education?

Learning to change, changing to learn

The Consortium for School Networking (CoSN) and the Pearson Foundation announced the official launch of a new public service announcement (PSA), Learning to change, changing to learn. This five minute video shares the views of an international panel of key educators and thought leaders including Education.au CEO Greg Black.

Once again you may not be able to view it at school. Let me know how you fare.



This veritable who’s who of educational thinkers (Keith Kruger, Greg Whitby, Greg Black, Julie Evans, Stephen Heppell, Yong Zhao, Barbara Nelson, Cheryl Lemke, Susan Patrick, Chris Dede, Karen Greenwood Henke, Deborah Baker, Daniel Pink, and Ken Kay) are all asking what learning in the 21st century should look like.

Educators won't be able to watch this video

The Organisation for Economic Co-Operation and Development (OECD) has extended an invitation via YouTube http://youtube.com/futureinternet for people to ask questions and share ideas on the future of the Internet ahead of its conference in Seoul, Korea on 17-18 June 2008.

education.au CEO Greg Black has made the following submission of behalf of education.au. Titled Educators won't be able to watch this video, Greg poses a challenge to the conference delegates regarding the barriers teachers and students face in using web-based tools.

So you may not be able to see this video in your workplace.

Leave me a note to say where you watched it.

Things in Plain English

Have you come across Common Craft Plain English videos?
There are some great ones, so I'm going to embed some of them here.
When you run a video on YouTube you will find links to even more videos not listed here.

Social Media in Plain English



Podcasting in Plain English



RSS in Plain English



Blogs in Plain English



Wikis in Plain English



Social Bookmarking in Plain English



Twitter in Plain English



Online Photo Sharing in Plain English

Adding a Podcast

I've taken the easy way out here and subscribed to Odiogo.
What that does is automatically add a computer generated "podiocast" capability to each of my posts, so that people can hear the post being read. Admittedly there are some quirks: the voice is American, and if you have URLs it tends to read them letter by letter, but in general it works well enough. You need to check your spelling carefully though, and put full stops and commas in so that it punctuates verbally. Otherwise you get run on sentences.

I have been using it successfully over on my other blog Mysteries in Paradise for some weeks now. What I have found is that although it has only been there a couple of weeks, you can access the podiocast on each of the posts in the archive. Occasionally it does take a while for the audio to become available, but usually it comes up within 15 minutes of the post being published. Visually impaired friends have reported that it makes "reading" my blogs much easier.

In order to use it you have to have "ownership" of the blog. So for example, I can't add it to my education.au blog because my status is sort of "sub-domain blogger". Nor can I add it to my me.edu.au blog, for the same reason.

The other thing that I've discovered is that you can save the file as an mp3 onto your computer for using elsewhere. So I am using them as part of a presentation that I am giving at a workshop in Darwin this week.

Using web 2.0 tools to stimulate professional learning

This was a handout prepared for the 2008 CEGSA confereence

Online Communities

• edna Groups: http://groups.edna.edu.au
• Communities in me.edu.au: http://me.edu.au
• Blogging Corner: http://www.groups.edna.edu.au/course/view.php?id=1862
• Communities of Interest in me.edu.au: http://me.edu.au/public/browseCommunities

Connecting with Others

• CEGSA site: http://cegsa.editme.com
• Oz-teachers mailing list
• OZTL mailing list
• SATEL: satel@edna.edu.au
• Classroom 2.0: http://www.classroom20.com/
• School 2.0: http://school20.ning.com/

Monitoring RSS & Blogs
http://www.groups.edna.edu.au/course/view.php?id=1862

See also RSS Still a Mystery?

Write a blog

• me.edu.au: e.g. http://me.edu.au/b/jtravers/
• edublogs: http://theedublogger.edublogs.org
• blogger: http://paradise-mysteries.blogspot.com/

Online Professional Development

• Centra (used by DECSA) - synchronous
• through an edna Group – asynchronous (forums) e.g. http://www.groups.edna.edu.au/course/view.php?id=40
• through Live Classroom (a Wimba tool)- asynchronous: http://url.edna.edu.au/u5Et
• through podcasts: http://www.edna.edu.au/edna/go/news/podcast/eli

Easy to access online resources

• edna newsletters recommend
  http://www.edna.edu.au/newsletters
• edna theme pages
  http://www.edna.edu.au/edna/go/schooled/school_theme_pages
• edna search on every page: http://edna.edu.au

Online Projects
http://ozprojects.edu.au

RSS Still a Mystery?

This is a handout created for a session at the 2008 CEGSA conference.

For further information see http://www.edna.edu.au/edna/go/help/rss_help

Also see my earlier blog postings beginning with
http://kerrie-smik.blogspot.com/2007/05/what-is-rss.html

RSS in Plain English: http://www.blip.tv/file/205570/

Aggregators are web places where you can identify the RSS feeds that you want to monitor
You access them via the web from wherever you are
• iGoogle: http://www.google.com/ig
• Pageflakes: http://www.pageflakes.com/
• Bloglines: http://www.bloglines.com/
• Blogbridge: http://www.blogbridge.com/
• Google Reader: http://reader.google.com/
• Netvibes: http://www.netvibes.com/
• Newsgator: http://www.newsgator.com/

RSS Readers are generally software that you download and then install on your computerA list of RSS Readers that you can downloadhttp://blogspace.com/rss/readersRssReader - free RSS reader is able to display any RSS and Atom news feed (XML)http://www.rssreader.com/
Feed Reader3 – free RSS readerhttp://www.feedreader.com/
FeedGhost – Requires Windows XP or Windows Vistahttp://www.feedghost.com/

Creating an RSS feed is not nearly as difficult as it once was.

• The easiest way to go about it is to create a blog and they usually generate an RSS feed.
  http://www.blogger.com/


• Tumblr is a tool that allows you to generate a blog from a "web journey" and the resultant blog is available as an RSS feed.
  http://www.tumblr.com/

Other sources of RSS feeds

• Twittr


• http://del.icio.us/


• Flickr

Feed 2 JS tool
http://feed2js.edna.edu.au/
This is a tool that enables you to feed the content of an RSS feed into a web page through Java Script.

What’s in a blog?

What’s in a blog? – Kerrie Smith :
this was created as a handout for the 2008 CEGSA conference

• Why blog? – what would I get out of blogging?
• What makes a good blog?
• How do I get started? Where can I blog?
• What is a blog roll?
• How do I watch blogs of others?
• Support groups
• Tools to use in your blog
• Using blogs with students
  

Why blog?

• Learn
• Share
• Create
• Collaborate
• Professional development
• Reflect
• Showcase
• Be part of a learning community
• Chart your professional journey
  

What makes good blog?

http://theedublogger.edublogs.org/2008/04/27/heres-my-first-five-tips-for-writing-better-blog-posts-what-are-yours/

• Short paragraphs
• Headings
• Hyperlinks
• Comment on the comments
• Subscribe to your own feed
  

What to do with a visually noisy blog - by Christine Martell

The F reading pattern – reading for web content

http://www.useit.com/alertbox/reading_pattern.html

• Readers first read in a horizontal movement across the top of the page
• Then a little further down the page, horizontally again
• Then in a vertical movement down the left side
• Users won’t read your post word for word
• The first 2 paragraphs are the most important
• Start headings, paragraphs, and bullet points with information-carrying words
  

Getting Started: Places where you can set up your blog

• http://edublogs.org/
• http://blogger.com
• http://wordpress.com/
• http://www.typepad.com/
• http://me.edu.au
• http://www.livejournal.com/

Layout, difficulty of use, and basic tools vary from blog to blog

Sue Waters: http://theedublogger.edublogs.org/getting-started-with-edublogs/

Tools

• http://theedublogger.edublogs.org/2008/07/11/simple-tools-for-creating-screen-captures/
• http://theedublogger.edublogs.org/category/blogging-tips/
• http://www.clocklink.com/
• http://feedjit.com/
• http://www3.clustrmaps.com/
  

Monitoring blogs

• RSS Readers & Aggregators
  e.g. http://rssreader.com or http://www.feedreader.com/
• Google IG
• Pageflakes
• Bloglines
• Netvibes
• BlogRovr
• Friend feed
  

Using blogs with students

• Authentic audience
• Connections between home and school
• Literacy
• Reflection
• Celebrating achievements
• Engagement with web 2.0 tools
• Free up the writing process
• Encourage communication
• Feedback from others through comments
  

http://alupton.edublogs.org/class-blogs-management-moderation-and-protection/

Support Groups

http://www.groups.edna.edu.au/course/view.php?id=1862

Blogging Corner is a place for bloggers, would-be bloggers, and blogging mentors.

http://edubloggerworld.ning.com/

an international network for educational bloggers and friends. A meeting place, as well as a coordinating location for live face-to-face and virtual events