RSS Aggregators & the Classroom

I just looked at the Shifted Librarian's post "New York Times Figures Out Aggregators" and it made me start thinking about a recent RSS aggregator lesson Ambookgeek created for the journalism class. I was lucky enough to be included in teaching this lesson but the credit all goes to Ambookgeek.

It was interesting that S.L. points out that people will not know that it is "RSS" but how they described "My Times" is the part of the definition of what RSS aggregators are. Check out this RSS in Plain English youTube video for a cool explanation.The NYT states:

What is My Times?
My Times is a free service that lets you create a personalized page with what you like best in The New York Times and your favorite sites and blogs from all over the Web. This personalized service makes it easy to read all that you like, from one central place.

I decided to to check out the New York Times' "My Times" feature and wondered if it would be more appropriate for a classroom setting. Looking at it, I do not see how it is any different from My Yahoo or iGoogle except that you can get NYT journalists suggestions.

I am wondering about possibly using something like MyTimes or iGoogle, because of the filters that have been installed on the school computers. Our journalism teachers were interested in using Bloglines, but the word "blog" seems to be one of the words that is filtered. Ambookgeek suggested introducing aggregators because the students need to read a number of different types of news stories and thought it would be a great way to (1) show them aggregators and (2) set them up with a one stop shop for news stories that they could "star" or "keep as new." Would the NYT's aggregator be a way to bypass the filtering software? It is obvious, that these personalized pages are becoming more and more mainstream but how can we utilize it for the classroom?

We are now experiencing technical difficulties

Recently, Ambookgeek and I have been attempting to teach the kiddies about RSS readers, specifically Bloglines. I am a Google Reader user so I have been trying to familiarize my self with the Bloglines set up. We were so excited about having teachers who are interested in using this technology until we faced technical difficulties. Mainly, the fact that the site is blocked.

I am really not a fan of filters. First, you order these applications from companies and they are so secretive as to what their list of words are that are used to block sites. Second, it blocks things that are important, like medical and health sites. Third, they just hinder things more than "protect" children. For example, last year, one of the projects the kids had was to look for propaganda images. One of our students decided he would focus on cigarettes and decided to look up Joe Camel. One of the images that came up was (in the word of Michael K.) a peen! And other bits and pieces. Ok! So much for filtering. But to end that story, of course, the kid decides that it would be appropriate to show me. He had a good laugh and then we had the particular image blocked from the school server.

Filters do not really work and I think they are a waste of time.

Returning to the technical difficulties of today, for 2 days we tried to conduct a lesson on RSS aggregators for the journalism class and Ambookgeek tested to see if the students could access the site prior to the lessons. Each time he was able to access the site. But the second we need to demonstrate in class and walk the kids through the steps, they have been blocked. It is so frustrating. We want to be able to use these amazing tools that can help our students and enhance our teaching and it seems that time and time again, there are obstacles. These obstacles seem easily remedied but it is never that easy, is it?

On a positive note, at least we are learning to be pretty flexible and do not let these difficulties get in the way of a good lesson. Though how embarrassing is it when you start a lesson that you are excited about and then it does not work? Yikes!