My Experience Thus Far With An RSS Aggregator

Since I have a Gmail account, and use iGoogle, Blogger, and other Google-based apps, I decided to use Google Reader to consolidate my RSS feeds. I LOVE Google Reader. I am one of those people that loved to collect information. Before suscribing to Google Reader, I belonged to a few email update types of accounts. For example, I got daily news feeds from two different newspapers, The NY Times, The Miami Herald (which has better coverage of current events and elections in Central and South America). On iGoogle, I had local news piped in and a few other news sources. Google Reader is actually more functional for me. For one thing, it keeps everything in one place and doesn't add to my email pile. I can visit it when I want and it tracks what I have scanned or read and what I haven't touched. I added the required sites, and a few more related to teaching a foreign language and Spanish in particular. I've been checking feeds about every other day. Sometimes there is nothing new, unless it is RSS from a news source like the NPR Education feed. I was even able to link my Delicious bookmarks over into Google Reader.

I especially like the ability to aggregate blog subscriptions. I responded to one blog post where I learned about Tuenti, a Spanish social networking site that takes some Spanish cultural practices into account. It was fun having a response back from the blogger herself! I imagine that with practice I may find even more helpful blogs and online communities to add to my personal learning network. On a personal note, I enjoy being able to mix more personal items in Google Reader too, such as my friend Dan's blog with pics of his new baby. It's fun to see whats happening and to see pics of his little boy!

I have learned from following my feeds, even for such a short amount of time. Some of the info on the tech sites is very "technical" such as reviews of new keyboards or other hardware. I am hoping to find some sites that discuss more about the application of technology to teaching in the future. Such resources and interactions (it IS web 2.0 after all!) will really help improve and enhance my classroom teaching. I especially look forward to connecting with teachers in Spanish-speaking countries.

Here is a pic of my Google Reader Page in all of it's glory.