Site Subscriptions

The ability to subscribe to feeds changes the way people get information from the Internet. The vast amount of information and material that is accessible through the Internet can be a little overwhelming if you (as a searcher) are not looking for specific information or details. I think that the more people work with searching and surfing the Internet, the more comfortable and efficient the searching becomes. If you have a clear understand of what you are looking for than the information can sometimes be right in front of your nose on the Internet, but if not sure of your goal than the search may become a bit longer and more complicated. I think that subscribing to feeds allow the desired information to basically be delivered to you. If anything, I feel that subscribing to feeds almost makes us (as "Internet searchers") more lazy because the work we have to do in order to get the desire information is minimal. But maybe lazy is the wrong term because these feeds allow us to become much more efficient and possibly more productive. So overall I believe that these feeds allow us to directly and quickly find our desired information, therefore allowing us to spend our time working towards other goals and desires.

As for the combination of students and feeds, I believe that there are numerous possibilities for students using feeds in a positive way. I have a particular passion for geography and I can envision my students subscribing to various feeds that would provide them with useful geographic information. I would love for my students to subscribe to feeds that vary in geographical subject, so that they would be exposed to a variety of information and resources. Possible feeds would allow students to view and familiarize themselves with the geographic issues that are present. I will also be teaching ESL students so I've included some useful blog feeds for ESL educators.

I had a really difficult time finding the RSS feeds for my students to subscribe to that focused on geography so I decided to include the general feeds that I thought could be beneficial for educators and students.

For educators:
http://www.edutopia.org/rss.php
http://www.esl-lesson-plan.com/
http://eltnotebook.blogspot.com/2007/02/practising-questions-lateral-thinking.html

For students:
http://www.weeklyreader.com/kids/index.asp
http://www.verybestkids.com/
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/extra/index.html