Thing #8 RSS Reflection

I can see myself becoming slight addicted to RSS. I wasn't sure what sites to sign up for so I started with things that I thought I might actually read: Dallas Morning News, Mavericks, and Disney.  I don't get a traditional newspaper at home and of course don't have time at work to browse through the copy at school.  I found myself searching the Dallas Morning News site several days a week to catch up on local events.  The layout of the RSS reader makes this search a lot easier.  I didn't have to keep navigating back to the homepage and search for titles of interest.  The headlines are in a simple format that makes it so easy to search for a story of interest, click and read and back to the list.  I LOVE IT!

The Disney site was also formatted the same way (maybe they all are?) and while I didn't read as many stories, it was fun to search through and read those of interest.  (The link is for you SpeedReader and Junior Master Margaret!)

The site that surprised me most was the Mavericks Blog by Mark Cuban.  I assumed it would be primarily about the basketball team, but I couldn't have been more wrong.  I started with oldest entry it provided and worked my way up (okay it was talking about Dancing with Stars I admit).  I was surprised as I worked up to the more recent entries that he also included entries about some other interesting topics (i.e Facebook, My Space, Google Open Social, and You Tube to mention a few).  As it has gotten somewhat late, I didn't take the time to read all of his entires now, but I really do look forward to going back and reading over his opinions.

As you can see by my enthusiasm I see a lot of future use of RSS and newsreaders in my personal life.  While I have not found many too many professional sites that I want to subscribe to at this point, I now know how easy it is to do and what to look for on future sites of interest.  I will certainly keep my eyes open for more professional related sites that I can add to my Reader.  When I add those sites it will allow me to keep up with current trends and pass that information along to my campus.  As we continue to say, time is of the essence in the classroom now so anything I can do to provide pertinent information in a more timely fashion for my campus would be great.

This is certainly one new tool that I know I will continue to use now and in the future!