RSS, what is it? The first time I heard someone speaking about this was at a conference that I was attending for my job, the topic of the conference was integrating technology into the classroom. The gentleman giving the first presentation of the day was talking about RSS and I was under the impression from his description that it was a form of podcasting, you could subscribe to a site and lectures, news, entertainment, and etc. would be downloaded automatically onto your Ipod. I subscribed to one site and it was a daily literature lesson and after listening to the second which put me to sleep, I cancelled that subscription and did not pay anymore attention to what I thought was RSS.
When I read the Wikpedia definition and realized that it stood for Really Simple Syndication, I continued reading and learned how it really works. I was excited to learn from both the Wikpedia and video link provided on how RSS really functions.
I had created a Google account so I logged and went to the reader function and I immediately went to ESPN.com and subscribed to the MLB baseball subscription. It took about thirty seconds for me to realize that I like the news coming to me instead of going and looking for it.
I have now added more RSS feeds and I have even started sharing some of the feeds I receive with others. I know I have only scratched the surface of this but I can definitely agree with others that this is very addictive.
Video: RSS in Plain English. Lee Lefever. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0klgLsSxGsU
Wikpedia: RSS definition. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RSS_(file_format)
What is RSS. RSS explained. https://myasucourses.asu.edu/webapps/portal/frameset.jsp?tab=courses&url=/bin/common/course.pl?course_id=_565287_1
Sunday, April 13, 2008
Sunday, April 6, 2008
Second Life
When I first read the article 'Your Second Life Is Ready' by Murdoch, Hall, and Getty, I realized that there was a whole new world of what I called gaming. I was familiar with the World of Warcraft and the other online games and never really thought much of wasting my time on these sites. That was until I loaded Second Life and started navigating around the site. Once I completed the first four required tasks, I started flying my avatar around, as shown in the picture. I found that this game if you want to call it that, was very entertaining. Soon I found or I should say they found me and I was making friends. The chat feature was nice and I soon realized that more than an hour had gone by. I don't know if this is really the best use of my time at this point. I have kids to feed and a wife that I want to spend real time with plus the many other aspects of having a family. I know this game or world could get very addictive very quickly and I could see myself escaping the real world to play around in this second world. I will visit this online escape from time to time just to see what different roles I can play and discover. I am amazed at the many aspects of it. The one thing that did creep me out was the way naked people seem to come and go. Just a tad weird for me.
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