RSS Feeds and Web 2.0

Before this week's lesson, I had only heard of RSS feeds.  I never knew what they stood for or what purpose they served.  However, this past week I learned what a useful tool these Rich Site Summaries, or RSS feeds, are.  These feeds automatically update the information on the sites that you are linked to, thus keeping you continuously updated and informed of any changes on the sites you are interested in.  Using RSS feeds is also more time efficient because rather than looking up every individual site, it leads you directly to the main web page.

I also learned some helpful Web 2.0 tools like blogs, and resources like "Delicious" and "Goodreads."  These are amazing tools that allow teachers to share, organize, and collect educational resources.  I have already found Goodreads to be especially useful when it comes to generating a list of grade-level appropriate children's books.  These categorized lists will serve as an excellent reference when I am creating my classroom library.  Also, through the "Delicious" site, I have been able to establish a well protected account of online teacher resources that I can use when preparing lesson plans for multiple subjects.  I am excited to continue using these tools and hope that they will enhance the efficiency of my preparation and planning for my future classes.