Digg Reader is a really great resource for those who have several different interests, and like to keep up to date or learn new and interesting facts about a particular subject. I am very new to the concept of blogging/streaming, and so by joining several different groups on the RSS stream, I have come to realize just how informative they can be! During my medical residency, I learned of a blog called Academic Life in Emergency Medicine ALiEM (as well as MANY others). Being as busy as I was (and unfortunately still am), I never got the chance to check the site out, and seemed very put off by the abundance of blogs/streams that were available. After going through several posts in ALiEM, I started to recognize several of my colleagues and attending physicians that I worked with back in Chicago. They are posting blogs about medical topics such as child abuse injury patterns (by Dr. Rahul Patwari, an attending physician at Rush Medical College in Chicago that I worked with first hand!), and different lecturing styles in medical school. Man... this is right up my alley!
I also decided to join a "just for fun feed," called I love F***ing science. This is a feed that I often see on my Facebook newsfeed from an old colleague of mine I went to medical school with. I really love some of the information he shares, and came across this group while searching under the science topic. One of the most interesting feeds I saw was about a gentleman who was visually impaired, and can now see after 33 years with his new bionic eye! Very, very cool!
Lastly, I decided to join a group that can help enhance my knowledge in using media as an educational source. Again, I am very new to multimedia, and can get all the help I can get, and joined a group called Technology in Education. This feed provides links to free graphics, online design tools, and links to articles about blogging and media in education.
I really think RSS streams are a great medium for learning and keeping "in the know" with certain topics, however, for the incredibly busy, such as myself... it is rather time consuming and one can get bogged down by the plethora of information that is available. I do, however, plan to spend around 10-15min daily just glancing through to see what new ideas and topics I can learn about! I hope to at some point join an investing affinity group to see where I can wisely put my money and how to best manage the massive amount of loans I have managed to accrue at this point...
Q1: What is an RSS feed?
RSS stands for "Really Simple Syndication," and is a great way to easily distribute a list of topics, headlines, updates, and specific content to a large number of people. RSS feeds are used by computer programs that organize the topics, headlines and updates for easy reading.
Q2: How can RSS feeds be used as a creative learning tool?
RSS feeds can be used as creative learning tools because they can be specifically chosen by the learner who has a particular interest, and can provide a condensed group of information that may be harder to find when using a basic search engine such as google.
For example, if one is interested in educational technology, searching this in google will bring up definitions, paid advertisements, websites, articles, etc that one may not really be interested in seeing. One can spend a lot of time looking around for what they are actually interested in. In contrast, searching on an RSS feed allows you to see specific things that hundreds of others who are also interested in the same topic post. It narrows the spectrum of that specific topic down, and provides a lot of resources or interesting facts that one would not find on a google search. Its like an interest group, which we use all the time in school, to conglomerate a bunch of people with similar interests who can share their experiences.
* NOTE: If looking for background information and subject matter, however, google may be a better option, as the RSS feed does not seem to provide any background knowledge.
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