Thing #8

RSS and newsreaders are fabulously efficient! As a teacher, I am constantly finding new ways to multi-task. I am astounded that I have not heard of this before. It is simple and excellent for time management. I don't have time to look up all of these sources of information separately, so this is great.
In my personal life, I can keep up with the less important topics like trashy celebrity news and sports scores. At school, I can keep up with new technology, lesson ideas, teaching trends, etc. It would be cool to have students in my classes set up their own newsreaders and subscribe to news blogs of their choice. It would be a good opportunity to incorporate technology with independent reading. Also, it could introduce the idea of genres to the kids. They could learn to organize their subscriptions into appropriate folders.
Our libraries could organize newsreaders for students and parents. The students' readers could have links to news that concerns them and the parents' readers could, too. It would be a great way to get kids reading and create family conversations about important matters.