Week 4 Thing #9

Hi everyone. I must be a bad blogger because I'm terrible at thinking outloud and am boring to read. I haven't had any comments in quite some time so I think I'm going to have to improve my writitng technique. I don't think it will happen today, but one never knows...

I have tried each of the blog and RSS feeds we were directed to try. I fnd it interesting that Feedster disappeared after such a great start. It appears with all the blog options the feeds are just as apt to disappear as quickly as they are designed. Topix.net was an interesting RSS feed and I was able to work my way around the feeds once I figured out how to pull up the whole story. I was a little disturbed to read many of the feeds to the story about the five women shot in the Lane Bryant store. The negativity towards blacks and the feeds that compare statistically on the black vs white is still astonishing to me as I think we as a society are supposed to be working towards a colorless society. I worry when I read the blogs that continue to point this out as to whether or not as a nation we are truly color blind. What does this mean for our next Presidential election?

I decided to then explore the topic of sports for the remainder feeds as I am not able to deal with the black vs white issues. I should, I suppose have posted my own comments but left that for here. I don't want to believe that we are as backwards as some of the comments hinted at, but I do believe we have still a long ways to go in this country. So on to sports...

I was at first intimidated by the set up of Syndic8. The open directory set up was somewhat confusing at first. When I did enter my feed search for Patriots (is there any other sports to blog today?) I found that I could easily locate and read the entire article. I like how they posted the links to the actual article I also enjoyed the articles I read. The blogs accompanying the articles were interesting and not too negative. I did find that Technorati had some interesting and different blogs for the Patriots. What I had trouble with was getting any of the links to open up. I was unable to open any links, no matter what the subject matter, innocent or not on my computer. Did anyone else have this problem? I would not want to use this with students however because the temptation to view some soft porn would be too tempting and the girls might be insulted with the snack suggestion for larger breasts.

The Google Blog Search had some annoying pop ups that I couldn't figure out how to close them until the time was up and they closed on their own time. This would drive me crazy and with the two other RSS feeds that were easy to find and locate information on, Topix.net and Syndic8 I would be more likely to use these feeds. It is easy enough to post comments and to read the articles in their entirety.

Maybe because my search was easy I found that I didn't have trouble pulling up information on any of the feeds. I thought the most unusual feeds came from Technorati as they didn't direct me directly to information on the Superbowl or the Patriots but did give snack ideas and useless information.

I did like the tabs at the tops of all the pages, except for Syndic8. This was easy to choose which category I wanted to participate or read up on information. I did search politics, sports and general information (meaning I just clicked on stories listed on the page without putting in a search).

Well, this is it for now.... I will have to explore these RSS feeds more often and possbily figure out the best way to incorporate them into my life and then possiby into the students' lives. I am worried that with middle school students it may be a little tricky. Has anyone tried this yet?