Chapter Five

Chapter Five

I found chapter five, “RSS: The New Killer App for Educators”, to be a bit overwhelming.  Richardson, frequently emphasized that RSS will save the user time, but I admit I am skeptical.  I followed the instructions given by Richardson and set up an “aggregator” through Google.com/reader.  His directions are clear and simple to follow.  I now have subscribed to a few sites and stored them in two different folders: Russian Literature and Grammar.  

Although from my initial experience I can easily recognize that RSS is easy to use, I am intimidated by the daunting task of maintaining an ongoing interaction with this tool. The comment by Richardson that leaves me unconvinced of the value of this resource is, “…Maybe you check it right after you check your e-mail….. However you do it, you need to build up a habit of checking to see what’s new on a daily basis” (82).  I currently check my personal e-mail approximately once every 4-6 weeks.  I make this effort because that is how my book club communicates reminders about the next book and location of our meeting.  I usually check my school e-mail once a day, but often only after someone asks me what my response was to an e-mail that was sent to me.  I cannot imagine how having one more source that I must daily check is going to save me time.  I have no doubt that there are volumes of useful details, resources, suggestions, and facts out there, but I have no desire to have a barrage of information constantly coming at me.  I prefer to go and search out the sources and information that I want when I need them.   I need to experiment more with RSS in order to discover its benefit.