After a week long hiatus, I am back in full swing to tackle the the next thing-- searching for (quality) RSS..'s...es?
I played with a few of the listed tools and have comments for each:
Google Blog Search: Not surprisingly, using this engine returned the most results for my search term which may be good for getting an idea of what's out there on a topic. It might prove to be overwhelming though if you are not exactly sure what you are looking for. Additionally, other than the Google Blog home page that details "popular" topics at the time... there is no rating system and would therefore make it difficult to find quality work as emphasized by the post on enlisting a "circle of the wise" on the Cool Cat Teacher blog. Out of the few that I played with, I think I would definitely give this one the credit for "most confusing". Sorry Googs... though I did find an interesting blog of a middle school science teacher entitled Mr. Brovont's Science Blog. I wonder though how many others I am missing simply because they don't have "science" or "education" in their title.
Edublog Award Winners: I found this site to possess what I was lacking with the Google Search... a list of blogs that have been validated by a third party as quality work. After looking at the winners (and subscribing to a few... most notably Free Technology for Teachers) I have found useful information to enhancing my practice as a teacher as well as seeing examples of how I might incorporate blogging into my classroom. Look forward to the 2010 winners. Note: the link on the Library2Play page takes you to 2008 winners.... here is the 2009 page.
Topix: I admit I didn't spend much time with this guy... but I did think it was worth mentioning that just by clicking on the link it brought me to a list of new stories for my zip code. So without in-depth exploration, I can only see it's use to keep abreast of local news stories which was interesting!
Technorati: I liked this site as it seemed to be a prettier and less overwhelming version of Google Blogs. It advertised the most popular posts at that time and seemed to cover many topics including entertainment (a commentary on the television show Big Brother), world news, and health. It kind of gave the vibe of being the YouTube of blogs... I think this one was my favorite and was the easiest to use overall.
So the results:
Most Confusing: Google Blogs
Easiest: Tecnorati and Edublog Award winners
Newly discovered feeds: Mr Brovont's Science Blog, Free Technology for Teachers
Adios!
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