Google Reader

I started using RSS feeds about a year ago, as the Mail program on my Mac has a built in reader. I have a few friends who have blogs, so I keep track of their comments with via RSS. Another friend uses Google Reader, which I played with a little bit a while ago. Now, at the prompting of the 23 Things project, I've played around a bit more.

Google's applications are very helpful, but their directions are very unclear. I am excited about keeping tracks of blogs and other websites in one place. However, whenever I want to change, personalize, or explore a particular feature, I find it hard to figure out how to do so. I consider myself a fairly savvy technology user, but struggled with using Reader features that sounded cool.

I plan to follow my students' blogs via my Google Reader account. I'll keep each class's links in it's own folder, making tracking, grading and general usage easier. I will be able to see when they post and comment, without having to visit every one of the 170+ sites. I'm not sure that I want to require my students to use RSS feeds to follow each others blogs, but I may suggest it in class. I think that it would be neat for a Social Studies class to use a reader to follow specific news sites. Perhaps they could compare The New York Times and CNN online, in order to look for the particular biases present in the news.