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For me, one of my central pedagogical goals is always to teach students to critically engage media. As such, I feel it is important to teach students how to become critical navigators in the digital spaces where a majority of their information will be taken in. And for me, this is one of the reasons that blogging in the classroom can serve an important pedagogical role that writing in paper format alone cannot accomplish. If one simply transfers the "book-way" of writing onto the digital space, students have learned little that they could not have gained from more traditional writing assignments.

Highlighted by judiyost

To write “well” in this space students need to learn not only how to cite and link, but indeed to package their writings in a different way. RSS helps accomplish this goal.

Highlighted by judiyost

RSS helps to give students control over content on the web, reducing time spent navigating from site to site to see what has changed, and instead allowing them to receive updates about the content they are interested in tracking or material that is relevant to class.

Highlighted by judiyost

on the internet requires two separate skills: one, the quick analysis to find what is worth reading, and the second, a switch to slow analysis to carefully consider what has been found. What RSS does is allow students to make this distinction, to receive content as "bits" easy to scan, and then to select what they want to read.

Highlighted by judiyost

When I show students what RSS can do, how it can help them to navigate the internet, it almost always results in a two-stage reaction. First, awe and wonder as to why no one ever showed them this before. Second, a new found interest in reading digital information. (I suspect the second is a direct result of feeling less overwhelmed by content.)

Highlighted by judiyost

Teaching students to write blogs without at least providing the idea behind RSS is like teaching them to write papers on word processors, but never showing them how to use spell check, find and replace, italics or any of the formatting tools

Highlighted by judiyost

In order to be successful authors in this space, students need to construct content that takes advantage of the iterability and citationality that the web offers. Rather than simply referring to an article, students need to author documents that link to that article, and link to those articles in a way that enhances their writing

Highlighted by judiyost

many RSS readers allow users to simply load the current article, or a portion of it, into their current writing and append their comments. This type of citation and appending comments to citation is crucial to becoming critically engaged readers and writers. Writing content for digital presentation is increasingly becoming dependent on understanding the tools, and one of these crucial tools is RSS.

Highlighted by judiyost

one of the most frequent complaints of students who have been required to blog for class is that they feel as if what they are writing does not get read by anyone except the instructor. Professors can require that students read each others' blogs and comment, but this usually results in just a few of the blogs being well trafficked and commented on

Highlighted by judiyost

By using RSS, you can syndicate all of the students blogs; every student in the class will get the class “newspaper” with headlines and synopsis of each student's writing, allowing them to scan all of the posts at once, and then decide which ones are most relevant, and select them for close reading. Furthermore, RSS can facilitate commenting, as most blogs will allow you to syndicate the comments to a specific post, so that students can post to a blog and continue to follow up on the comment thread. Again, this will help students to realize how writing for the web is a matter of continuos conversation rather than static paper design.

Highlighted by judiyost

Having a robust RSS reader enables all of the student posts to be delivered to your reader, instead of requiring that you visit each individual blog. This makes it much easier to asses student work, and, perhaps more importantly, much easier to comment on and provide feedback about students' blogs.

Highlighted by judiyost

Additionally, as I mentioned above, you can export a document of all the feeds to a student group, making it easy for them to sign up for each other's blogs or web sites you want them to read in relation to the classroom work.

Highlighted by judiyost

Not only does this mean I have my own personal newspaper, but I have one that I can easily share with others.

Highlighted by judiyost

Highlighted by kidstone

We need to begin by framing the approach in a new way to contextualize writing better, and, more importantly, to make classroom blogging (and even more broadly writing in digital spaces) more productive for the students and professors.

Highlighted by kidstone

lack of understanding about the ways that information is disseminated and archived in these spaces.

Highlighted by baoanngu

how the technology of RSS is crucial both from a theoretical and a practical standpoint to any digital writing, but especially to any blogging classroom.

Highlighted by kidstone

(I have found that among students, even though this is the tech-savvy generation, less that one in ten have used RSS.

Highlighted by neelagrawal

greatly enhance classroom blogging both in the pedagogical and the practical realms.

Highlighted by alexakaul

RSS can greatly enhance classroom blogging

Highlighted by hpncb9

explain it by analogy to a newspaper. Imagine that you could have a newspaper delivered to your house that had only the content you wanted

Highlighted by kidstone

Imagine that you could have a newspaper delivered to your house that had only the content you wanted >.

Highlighted by alexakaul

any website you want

Highlighted by alexakaul

(RSS stands for either “Rich Site Summary,“ or ”Really Simple Syndication.“)

Highlighted by kidstone

One of the most significant concerns about using blogs in the classroom is that students often feel as if they are doing the same writing, just placing it on the web.

Highlighted by maritomer

One of the most significant concerns about using blogs in the classroom is that students often feel as if they are doing the same writing, just placing it on the web.

Highlighted by ecoinvestigator

One of the most significant concerns about using blogs in the classroom is that students often feel as if they are doing the same writing, just placing it on the web.

Highlighted by wendelll

One of the most significant concerns about using blogs in the classroom is that students often feel as if they are doing the same writing, just placing it on the web.

Highlighted by vengeur

reading space to a read-write space

Highlighted by hpncb9

web content in recent years has changed, most significantly with regard to the increase in wikis, blogs, social sites, and even the speed at which traditional sites now get updated.

Highlighted by alexakaul

e of my central pedagogical goals is always to teach students to critically engage media.

Highlighted by bobsprankle

As such, I feel it is important to teach students how to become critical navigators in the digital spaces where a majority of their information will be taken in.

Highlighted by zhugeliang

And for me, this is one of the reasons that blogging in the classroom can serve an important pedagogical role that writing in paper format alone cannot accomplish.

Highlighted by hannahf

And for me, this is one of the reasons that blogging in the classroom can serve an important pedagogical role that writing in paper format alone cannot accomplish

Highlighted by yeesuen

in the digital medium, writing often produces technological frustrations which, if not offset by other gains, leads to negative experiences for the students.

Highlighted by kidstone

Writing in the age of the digital is no longer a matter of being the absolute genius creator who gives birth to an idea and writes it all down for the world to see (as if it ever was); managing context on the web for writers has become a significantly different task. To write “well” in this space students need to learn not only how to cite and link, but indeed to package their writings in a different way. RSS helps accomplish this goal.

Highlighted by rosekrans13

o write “well” in this space students need to learn not only how to cite and link, but indeed to package their writings in a different way. RSS helps accomplish this goal.

Highlighted by alexakaul

The amount of information on the web is overwhelming to say the least.

Highlighted by urbansprawls

RSS helps to give students control over content on the web, reducing time spent navigating from site to site to see what has changed, and instead allowing them to receive updates about the content they are interested in tracking or material that is relevant to class.

Highlighted by kidstone

RSS helps to give students control over content on the web, reducing time spent navigating from site to site to see what has changed, and instead allowing them to receive updates about the content they are interested in tracking or material that is relevant to class. >

Highlighted by alexakaul

RSS helps to give students control over content on the web, reducing time spent navigating from site to site to see what has changed, and instead allowing them to receive updates about the content they are interested in tracking or material that is relevant to class.

Highlighted by yeesuen

sorting again the information you receive, separating what is not of interest from that which is (an invaluable skill for students who will increasingly rely on digital information)

Highlighted by alexakaul

But more important than staying up to date on information is the ability RSS provides to sort what one wants to read from what is not of interest, not only in terms of selecting to receive only certain feeds, but also as a matter of reading only in detail a few of the feeds you receive: sorting again the information you receive, separating what is not of interest from that which is (an invaluable skill for students who will increasingly rely on digital information).

Highlighted by anciana

What a good feed reader does is allow you to quickly scan the headlines, mark the ones you want to read, toss out the ones you don't, and return either immediately, or at a later more convenient time, to carefully read the ones you have selected.

Highlighted by jaclynk

What a good feed reader does is allow you to quickly scan the headlines, mark the ones you want to read, toss out the ones you don't, and return either immediately, or at a later more convenient time, to carefully read the ones you have selected.

Highlighted by kidstone

he speed of reading in the age of the digital has changed, and we need to help students navigate this.

Highlighted by bobsprankle

Being able to “surf” around countless webpages, scanning information, might be a good practice for cursory knowledge acquisition, but it does not lend itself to in-depth reading. In fact, I would argue that these are almost two separate mental practices.

Highlighted by lisacc0729

able to “surf” around countless webpages, scanning information, might be a good practice for cursory knowledge acquisition, but it does not lend itself to in-depth reading. In fact, I would argue that these are almost two separate mental practices. > An

Highlighted by alexakaul

Reading on the internet requires two separate skills: one, the quick analysis to find what is worth reading, and the second, a switch to slow analysis to carefully consider what has been found

Highlighted by jaclynk

o teach students to distinguish between

Highlighted by alexakaul

So here is one of my big pedagogical and theoretical claims: The speed of reading in the age of the digital has changed, and we need to help students navigate this. Being able to “surf” around countless webpages, scanning information, might be a good practice for cursory knowledge acquisition, but it does not lend itself to in-depth reading. In fact, I would argue that these are almost two separate mental practices. And it is important to teach students to distinguish between these two. Reading on the internet requires two separate skills: one, the quick analysis to find what is worth reading, and the second, a switch to slow analysis to carefully consider what has been found. What RSS does is allow students to make this distinction, to receive content as "bits" easy to scan, and then to select what they want to read.

Highlighted by anciana

The speed of reading in the age of the digital has changed, and we need to help students navigate this. Being able to “surf” around countless webpages, scanning information, might be a good practice for cursory knowledge acquisition, but it does not lend itself to in-depth reading.

Highlighted by yeesuen

Reading on the internet requires two separate skills: one, the quick analysis to find what is worth reading, and the second, a switch to slow analysis to carefully consider what has been found.

Highlighted by yeesuen

make a mental separation between tagging items to be read, and then reading items.

Highlighted by kidstone

When I show students what RSS can do, how it can help them to navigate the internet, it almost always results in a two-stage reaction. First, awe and wonder as to why no one ever showed them this before. Second, a new found interest in reading digital information. (I suspect the second is a direct result of feeling less overwhelmed by content.)

Highlighted by miss-jane

What I tell students to do is actually make a mental separation between tagging items to be read, and then reading items.

Highlighted by yeesuen

To state the obvious, writing for the internet, and specifically writing for blogs, is informed by a different context than the paper writing we ask of students for class.

Highlighted by maritomer

To state the obvious, writing for the internet, and specifically writing for blogs, is informed by a different context than the paper writing we ask of students for class.

Highlighted by dausberr

productive classroom blog projects focus on teaching students how writing for the internet requires a different type of authorship

Highlighted by kidstone

writing in the age of the digital is, as I indicated above, far more a matter of becoming a networked author, of writing a networked book.

Highlighted by kidstone

construct content that takes advantage of the iterability and citationality that the web offers. Rather than simply referring to an article, students need to author documents that link to that article, and link to those articles in a way that enhances their writing.

Highlighted by baoanngu

By learning to use RSS, students can cull from a large number of resources to provide this citationality. Furthermore, many RSS readers allow users to simply load the current article, or a portion of it, into their current writing and append their comments. This type of citation and appending comments to citation is crucial to becoming critically engaged readers and writers. Writing content for digital presentation is increasingly becoming dependent on understanding the tools, and one of these crucial tools is RSS.

Highlighted by bobsprankle

One only has to look at the most successful blogs to understand the extent to which the ability to cite and link to sources is crucial for garnering an audience.

Highlighted by yeesuen

complaints of students who have been required to blog for class is that they feel as if what they are writing does not get read by anyone except the instructor.

Highlighted by kidstone

Second, one of the most frequent complaints of students who have been required to blog for class is that they feel as if what they are writing does not get read by anyone except the instructor.

Highlighted by maritomer

Again, this will help students to realize how writing for the web is a matter of continuos conversation

Highlighted by bobsprankle

RSS can facilitate commenting, as most blogs will allow you to syndicate the comments to a specific post, so that students can post to a blog and continue to follow up on the comment thread. Again, this will help students to realize how writing for the web is a matter of continuos conversation rather than static paper design.

Highlighted by cmrobins

digital content is increasingly syndicated. Thus, writing without an awareness of how your writing may be syndicated can lead to addressing your audience in an ineffective way

Highlighted by kidstone

advertisers have had to rethink web-based presentations.

Highlighted by kidstone

I can give another user a document of all the feeds to which I subscribe, and another user can import that document (usually no more than a few clicks) into their reader and instantly see, read, and modify the feeds to which I subscribe.

Highlighted by alexakaul

RSS is actually surprisingly easy to set up for your classes, as most blogs automatically produce a feed, and once you learn how this works it is usually a matter of just clicking on a link, or copying and pasting a url. Additionally, as I mentioned above, you can export a document of all the feeds to a student group, making it easy for them to sign up for each other's blogs or web sites you want them to read in relation to the classroom work.

Highlighted by dausberr

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