RSS Means What?!

Really Simple Syndication. That's what RSS means. And this is important why?

Photo by Chesi - Fotos CC
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Consider this scenario. You've found twenty blogs that you just love. Tomorrow you visit all 20 of them to see if there are any new posts. Yay! Nine of the blogs have some great new stuff (of course this means 11 had no new posts). The next day you visit all twenty blogs--more new posts!! You do this every day for a week. It is exhausting. If only you could be alerted when the blog authors post new stuff, instead of visiting all twenty blogs each day. This is where RSS comes in. Check out the video RSS In Plain English from the Common Craft Show below for an even better explanation. (The commonly used icon for RSS is shown above.)



Getting RSS to Work For You

Before you can use the power of RSS, you need to have a feed reader. I recommend Google Reader for two reasons; 1) it is pretty easy to use, and 2) I'm going to get you to set up your blog in Google, so why not sign up once (for reader and blog) instead of twice with two different companies? More on Google Reader in this post.

**Note: I do not receive any goodies or lucre from Google; I just like their stuff. If they'd like to send me goodies or lucre I would not be averse to taking it though ;-)**

This is post #4 in the 'blogging 101' series.

The Great Blog Search

Before we focus on creating your own blog, it would be helpful to check out blogs on topics that interest you. So how do you find blogs of interest? Here are a couple of different methods that I've found useful.

Do A Blog Search

• Google Blog Search is similar to a regular Google search, but it just looks for blogs with the search terms you choose.
• Technorati also searches blogs. Just type in your search terms in the search bar in the banner.
• Bloglines. As with Technorati, type in your search terms in the search bar in the banner.

Leapfrog From A Blog You Already Like

Photo by Thomas Hawk
Attribution-NonCommercial License

• If you've found a blog you really like, the blog author will often have a list of blogs to which they subscribe in one of their sidebars. Checking these out is a good place to start as they come recommended! You can check out the blogs I subscribe to under Blogs I Read in the right sidebar. Most of the ones I've listed are edublogs; blogs written by public school or university educators.

• Sometimes you'll read a comment on a blog from someone whose ideas you find interesting. If they've linked their blog to their comment just click on their name or icon to go to their own blog.
  

Don't Forget!
If you've just found a great blog, for Pete's sake, bookmark it! Better yet, tell us about it by leaving a comment on this post. Tell us the name of the blog and blog address and maybe a brief description (eg cool math blog with lots of lesson ideas). To figure out how to comment, go here. I'll explain in the next few posts how to keep track of your favourite blogs.

Now, on to the next post!

This is post #3 in the 'blogging 101' series.

What Is A Blog?

Most people have heard of blogs, but to really explain what blogs are and how they work check out this short video, Blogs in Plain English from the folks at Creative Craft.



Then go to the next post.

This is post #2 in the 'blogging 101' series.

Blogging 101--Intro

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Welcome to Blogging 101! This post and the ones that follow are part of a professional development session that I am doing for a group of teachers in my school district. The aim of the session it to introduce participants to blogs and illustrate how blogging can enhance on-going teacher professional development by facilitating communication and collaboration with teachers from around the world.

By the end of the session participants should be able to:

1. search for blogs of interest
2. subscribe to blogs in a feed reader
3. submit comments to a blog
4. set up their own blog
5. write their first blog post

I have posted all of the resources for the session on this blog. All of the posts have the label or tag blogging 101.

I hope that this series of posts will be of interest not just to people attending my session, but also to people starting out blogging and those who are looking for resources to help introduce blogging to their colleagues. Any comments or suggestions you have to improve the info here are welcome!

Now, onto the next post!

*This post, and the rest of this series will no doubt undergo some modifications prior to the Aug 28th blogging session as I tweak it.*

This is post #1 in the 'blogging 101' series.

Google Glow Slides

Well, it only took me a month, but here they are, the slides from Jodie and my Virtual School Society Annual Spring Conference talk. It was after viewing this site yesterday that I realized how lame I was in not embedding these slides to this blog earlier. The site has a number of Google Docs presentations that were produced by a class of 6th graders in New England and embedded into their class blog. Pretty cool. I'm sure they would love it if you dropped by, viewed some presentations and left a few comments.

I know that some of the slides in our presentation may be difficult to see--the main goal was to have these screen shots projected onto a big wall, not viewed on a screen at 410 pixels wide. Having said that, enjoy! Perhaps sometime this year I'll record some audio and and it too?




Addendum: I just realized that if you have a Google Account, you can view these slides full screen by doing the following; click on 'Menu' at the bottom right of the slides, then select 'Our Presentation Google Glow'. From there you are taken to the Google login page. Then you have view the slide show in full screen. Now that's better!

Comment Pet Peeve

So, you have a blog with Blogger/Blogspot/Google and you're looking forward to lots of great conversations on your blog. Here's one thing that many people overlook that could be hampering their ability to get the conversations going.

Default Comment Permissions

When you first set up your Blog on the Blogger platform the default setting is to only allow people with Blogger or Google accounts to comment. So when a person clicks on the comment link, this is what they'll see:

A lot of people are not going to be that interested in commenting if they have to sign up for an account. Or, if you're like me and have a Blogger account, but wish to link to your blog on another platform, it is just annoying. By having your blog comments set like this you are making it harder for some people to comment and join in the conversation.

How to Change Your Settings

To change your settings first you need to go to your Dashboard and click on 'Settings'.

Here's what you'll need to do next:

1. Select the 'Settings' tab.

2. Select 'Comments' from the menu.

3. Under 'Who Can Comment?', select 'anyone'

After making these changes, here's what your readers will see when they decide to comment.

If you are concerned about anonymous comments you could enable comment moderation and put a disclaimer on your blog that anonymous comments will not be posted :-) Easy!

Another Plug for the Comment Challenge

Part of what prompted me to post this was that I've been participating in the 31 Day Comment Challenge and so have been visiting a lot of blogs that are new to me. Amongst these blogs I've encountered some with the 'Google only' commenting.

Final Thoughts

If you come across a blog with 'Google only' commenting, maybe you can link them to this post. If you think there are some very good reasons for sticking with 'Google only' commenting I'd like to hear them. Thanks for taking the time to read this!

This is cross-posted on my other blog, Clarify Me.

Google Info for Teachers

For National Teachers' Day, the Official Google Docs blog had this post with links to various resources for teachers. If you are thinking about trying Google Docs, or have started but need to learn some basics, this post is for you; lots of good step-by-step information. They've also re-vamped their Google for Educators site. All are worth a look. And please note, no I don't work for Google and no they don't pay me. I just really like their stuff :-)