Thing 5: Educate yourself

Add at least three other news feeds, blogs, or Web page updates to your account. There are several ways you can locate RSS feeds:

When visiting your favorite websites, look for the RSS indicator. Often a feed icon will be displayed somewhere in the navigation of the site. The orange square above is one type of RSS feed icon. Here are some other RSS feed icons.

Do a blog search in Google. This search limits results only to blog postings. This can lead you to bloggers talking about what you are interested in.

Other Search tools that can help you find feeds:
Feedster - One of the largest collections of RSS feeds, Feedster lets you search for feeds in three categories: news, blogs & podcasts
Topix.net - This search tool allows you to locate recent newsfeed items based upon keyword or phrase searching. The tool focuses specifically on news and media outlet RSS feeds for information, not weblogs.
Syndic8.com - Syndic8 is an open directory of RSS feeds that contains thousands of RSS feeds that users have submitted.
Technorati - Technorati is a popular blog finding tool that lets you search for blogs. Since RSS feeds are inherent to all blogging tools, Technorati Blog Search can help you find RSS feeds for topic specific blogs you may be interested in. Additonal Resource: Technorati Tutorial on finding and adding your blog

Find some education or technology blogs, headlines, or other resources. Share those you find useful via a blog post.

Some places to start: edubloggers and interesting rss feeds dealing with education:
*Kathy Schrock's List of Education/Technology Bloggers
*Support Blogging
*Top 100 Education blogs (OEDb)
*CNN's education RSS feed
*Classroom 2.0
*Infinite Thinking
*The Edublog Awards
*International Edublogger directory

Discovery Exercise:

1. Explore some of the search tools noted above that can help you locate some news feeds.
   
2. Add at least three other news feeds, blogs or Web Page updates to your account (aside from the feeds from the other participants). Be sure to also add the feed for this project! (There won't be any more reminder e-mails to the entire staff, so this is the best way to keep up!)
   
3. Create a blog post about your experience. Don't know what to blog about? Here some questions to think about ...

• What do you like about RSS and newsreaders?
  
• How do you think you might be able to use this technology in your school or personal life?
  
• How can teachers use RSS or take advantage of this new technology?
  
• Which tool for finding feeds was easiest to use?
  
• What other tools or ways did you find to locate newsfeeds?
  
• Did you find any great sources we should all add to our feed reader?

Challenge (optional):

1. Make it public! Add your blogroll (the list of sites you subscribe to via RSS) on your blog! On blogger, it's easy through the layout tab… and then adding a page element!


2. If you've been doing this for a while, check out Todd's blog about Google Reader... and then try out the "stars and notes" for yourself!

Are you bummed that there are only two Things this week? Keep learning and check out some of the challenges from the past few Things! (Sitemeter is a fun way to keep track of who is visiting your site!)

Thing 4: Life Really Simple

Make life "really simple" with RSS & a newsreader
Thanks to all of you brave and inquisitive souls who are participating in this adventure... I hope you're having fun already! There are so many more fun things to come!

So everyone participating in 23 Things now has a blog and we told you to read your fellow learners’ blogs. Are you thinking, “Wait, I have to click on 100+ bookmarks to see if anyone has updated?!? Forget it; waaaay too much time.”

But what if you could visit all those blogs and more information sources in just one place and all at the same time? Would that be valuable to you? Well, you can! A lot smart people out there who like to keep up-to-date and save time have created services to make it easy to follow your favorite blogs and other information sources. It’s called RSS.

RSS stands for “Really Simple Syndication” and is a file format for delivering regularly updated information over the web.

In the information world, RSS has changed the way news, media, and content creators share information, and it is changing the way everyday users are consuming information. Join the revolution by setting up a RSS account.

Discovery Exercise:

1. Watch this Common Craft video about RSS and/or read more .
2. Set up an aggregator account using Google Reader. It’s free. Follow the directions at Google Reader (since you should already have a Google account for your blog) or the step-by-step directions for a Google Reader.
3. You will want to add some of your fellow participants’ blogs to your Google Reader account. This will help you keep up-to-date on they have to say about the Things, their discoveries, and comments. You can add additional feeds for Web sites, news sites, podcasts, and more, too.
4. Blog about this experience on your blog! Don't know what to blog about? Here are some questions to ponder...

• What do you like about RSS and newsreaders?


• How do you think you might be able to use this technology in your school or personal life?


• How can teachers or media specialists use RSS or take advantage of this new technology?


• Which tool for finding feeds was easiest to use?


• What other tools or ways did you find to locate newsfeeds?


• Did you find any great sources we should all add to our feed reader?

Resources
These resources will give you more information on the hows and whys of RSS.
Feed Me: A gentle introduction to Internet feeds - a good tutorial from Palinet,
Will Richardson shares an excellent eleven page guide to RSS for educators.

Challenge (optional)
If you already have a Google reader account, try out Bloglines, Netvibes or any of the other RSS services and blog about your thoughts about each.

Have fun finding and reading blogs (next thing!). But beware; it can be addictive!

Thing 3: Register your blog

Register your blog.

If you’ve made it this far, you already have three items or “things” completed of the twenty three!! Way to go!

Here's how to register:

• Click here to register your blog. Once you have clicked the Register button, you are registered. You will not receive a confirmation email. SurveyMonkey, the tool we use for registration is very reliable; we will get the registration.


• We will add you to the 23 Things blog lists. We will not list your name; only your blog's name. Remember, it may take a week or so to get your blog on the mother blog. Don't panic (and don't re-register!)--it will get there as soon as we can get it up.

You’re ready to start posting!

Whenever you complete a Thing, write a post reflecting your experience with the Thing you accomplished. Please clearly label each entry in your blog in with Thing number and the subject. We just need to be able to see which Thing you are doing. Read and comment on other 23 Things bloggers’ posts, too. That’s part of being part of this educational learning community. And everyone likes feedback.

Each of your posts should provide insights into what you’ve discovered and learned. Share what worked for you, what didn’t, what you’ve shared with your colleagues, any surprises, frustrations, and eureka moments. We will offer some blog prompts to get you thinking, but don’t feel limited by those—splash out and share!

Remember, each participant must have her/his own blog to record progress.

Discovery Exercise:

1. Register your blog through the link above.


2. Be sure to properly label each of your blog entries (see above)


3. Check out (and comment on) other people's blogs.


4. Use another test post to record your thoughts thus far.


5. Have fun!

NOTE: It may take a up to a week for your blog to appear on the Participants' Blogs lists. We must enter the info manually. If your blog does not appear a week after you register, email SWC023@gmail.com with your name, blog name, and blog URL. Check the FAQs for more info.

Challenge (optional)

1. Add features from Blogger's selections on Layout and Settings pages. Add a blog roll of blogs of your fellow participants or of other interesting blogs you've found. Add photos or video. How about a poll?

2. Already have a Blogger blog? Explore other blogging software and compare and contrast features. Which ones have great features? Which one would you recommend?

3. Add third party features to your blog--visitor counts, email subscriptions and more. Feedburner and Sitemeter are two sources of additional features.

4. Be sure to blog about your experience with the other blogging software and/or third party features. Any features you think all blogs should have?

Thing 2: Blog-o-rama!

Blog-o-rama!

Thing 2: Set up your blog
Now that you have a better idea of what 23 Things is all about, it’s time to set up your very own blog to begin recording your progress and thoughts on the 23 Things. There are several free online blog hosting services including Wordpress & Typepad, but we recommend Blogger, a Google product.

This is a very important Thing. You will record your progress in your blog & others will be reading your blog. Read through all of the instructions!

IMPORTANT NOTE: How you choose to identify yourself on your blog is your choice. You can blog under a screen name, anonymously, or as yourself. Others will be reading, so make your choice based on that information! Be sure to name your blog something creatively 23!

Setup your blog by following these steps:

Creating a blog using Blogger takes just three steps:

1. Create an account (view screenshot)


2. Name your blog (view screenshot)


3. Select your template. (view screenshot)

Once you’ve created your blog here are two important things to know:

• To add posts: The maintenance interface that you will use to add posts, edit or change the step-up your blog is accessed online at http://www.blogger.com/ Be sure to write down your login and password.


• To view your blog: Your blog address is http://(xxxx).blogspot.com/, (xxxx)=the unique identifier you entered in Step 2 (there is no www). Be sure to also write down your blog address.

If you run into problems or would like more information about blogs and using Blogger here are some discovery resources you can use:

• Freevlog’s Quicktime Tutorial: Setup a Free Blogger Blog Note: Ignore the opening comments about downloading Firefox if your PC doesn’t have it. This will work in Explorer just fine.


• Blogger’s Quick Tutorial

OK -- Now, it’s your turn...

Discovery Exercise:

1. Setup a blog for yourself through Blogger.


2. Add a test post or two.
   
   Note: Use one of your test posts to create an entry about the habits among the 7 and 1/2 lifelong learning habits that is easiest and hardest for you & why.


3. Have fun!!!!
   

Blogger Settings

Be sure that you have enabled comments. We want to comment on your posts, as do others.

1. Under the Settings Tab, click the Comments link. We recommend the second choice under Who Can Comment? Registered Users.

2. If you want to moderate comments (review all comments before they are published) scroll down and turn moderation on.

3. If you want others (up to 10 people) to know when you receive a comment, you can enter their email addresses in the box near the bottom of that page.

Click Save Settings once you are done.

Select your template.

• The fun part--Blogger has several templates so choose one that fits you. The first Choose Template screen has only a few; choose one. If you want to experiment with other Templates after your blog is set-up, go to Layout and choose Pick New Template. You will see many more choices. Try some; it is easy to see how your blog will look in the different choices.

Hints

• If you run into problems, check out Blogger's Help file and Tutorial or here’s a MINITEX Blog Tutorial . Another tutorial is here.


• Be sure to enable comments under Settings on Blogger.


• Be sure your blog title appears on the masthead of your blog. Go to settings and enter it in the Title box if it does not appear.


• Spend some time exploring the features of Blogger—spell check, how to upload photos or video, font choices, text size and color, and more!

Thing 1: Lifelong Learning

Welcome! It's great that you're checking out this fantastic adventure!
In this 23 things adventure, we will be discovering many Web 2.0 tools. Web 2.0 is a term encompassing philosophies and concepts like harnessing users in both design and implementation of services, and embracing constant change as a development cycle over the traditional notion of upgrades. Here's an interesting article about Web 2.0 in education. Web 2.0 tools make it easy to create content and then share it via the Internet. Schools (teachers, students and everyone involved) can use the tools to promote programs and services, create useful content, and communicate it to their users.

Among schools, lifelong learning is one of those core values we write our lesson plans for. So it makes sense that before we embark on this new online learning and discovery journey that we should take a few minutes to review a few habits that can assist in creating lifelong learners.

These habits, which we’ve called the Seven and 1/2 Habits of Highly Successful Lifelong Learners, will provide you with a refresher on what it means to be a lifelong learner.

Discovery Exercise:

1. Make sure you have headphones or speakers attached to your computer.
2. Open up the 7 & 1/2 Habits online tutorial and view the online tutorial.
3. As you watch and listen, write down which habit among the 7 & 1/2 that is easiest for you and which is hardest. You will use your personal blog (which you will set up next) to post your thoughts about lifelong learning.

Have fun! If you haven't jumped on board yet, it's never too late to become a lifelong learner.

Challenge: (optional)

1. Watch this video. Stephen Abram kicks off 23 Things at Murdoch University Library in Australia.
Write about:
We know time is always an issue--Stephen Abram shares some ideas on where to find the time for 23 Things. Where will you find the time?


Early Birds:
If you're already aching to get started, move on to Thing 2: setting up your own blog!