Journal 2 Blog Post

Journal 2
Affinity groups and RSS feeds

I joined an affinity group called Classroom 2.0.  The group is for educators who are interested in using technology and the Internet to help students learn in their classrooms.  I have an active interest in finding more ways of integrating educational technology to the lesson plan, so I hope to learn a lot more about this subject.

For the Digg RSS stream, I subscribed to The Daily Beast, The Washington Post, and Scientific American.  RSS feeds seem to be an incredibly efficient way to keep updated on my favorite sites.  Instead of visiting each site individually, the feed is able to gather information from every site into one location.  Every new post or update is also displayed in the form of a headline with a quick summary so I can easily skim over the news to see what is interesting.  I also found that Digg works very well on mobile, either by using the mobile version of the website or the app.  It is very convenient since you can check the news on the go this way.  It is a great service and I think I will be using it quite often from now on.

Q1: What is the main purpose of an affinity group?

A1: The primary purpose is to share ideas with other people who have the same interests.  You can already do this in a school setting, but the online affinity groups allow you to get even more ideas as you are communicating with more people.

Q2: How can RSS feeds be utilized in the classroom?

A2: The Digg RSS feed allows almost any site to be added, so as educators we could have our students post all of their homework on their own blogs or personal websites.  We could then add all of these sites to our RSS feed, which will allow us to monitor all of these sites in one convenient location.