Social Media in the Classroom
Friday, October 9, 2009 at 3:23PM 
Today, my economics teacher briefly but straight to the point talked to us about the future of the internet and the current social networking push done by all the major players: Facebook, Twitter, Google and Wikipedia.
For some reason my professor has an economics blog for his class and reminded us of it today. He took us through where it was and what it was called and what it was all about. He used the computer in the room that was hooked up to the projector to show us how to "connect" to the blog in a hands on approach, ya know? The funny thing was that used Internet Explorer. Of course this is no big deal considering that is what was just installed on the school's computer. But, he took it one step one further and went on to show us how to use an RSS feed and this is when my stomach did a few lurches.
Since I only use IE to download other web browsers (I'm very biased) I didn't know that it had a RSS feed reader. The one and only thing I like about this is that the average joe (that would be using IE) can subscribe to blogs and web sites and be a geek like you or me. My professor took the class step by step on using RSS on Internet Explorer and he did a great job.
What I really want to say:
After the whole shindig of learning how to use RSS feeds and watch them or find them and read them he asked,
"How many of you knew about RSS feeds before this?"
Out of about 150 students only five or six raised their hands. I was shocked.
I'm sure a lot of them use RSS feeds without knowing it of course. Using Google Reader all one has to do is enter in a website address to add to their reading list and it doesn't mention RSS even though that is the technology that is being used. Is nobody reading blogs or is it not the cool thing to do yet?
"I can't believe that so little of you knew this before today. This is where the internet is going folks, social networking. You guys should be teaching me this stuff!" is what he said when he saw the few hands go up.
With Facebook and Myspace uberly popular and Twitter being used by soccer moms it's not a far stretch that the future of the internet and the way we run our lives now can be lumped into this category. I found it refreshing to hear about something pretty geeky in class and a geekiness that I could have got up and talked about. I found it amazing that so few knew what an RSS feed is when Twitter and Facebook basically run off the same principle. And I found it intriguing that I heard the terms social networking, future, RSS and "follow my blog" in a classroom.
I love being a part of this movement!
Speaking of RSS feeds and social internet movements, why don't you take a few seconds and subscribe to my blog in your favorite reader!
Reader Comments (2)
i'm kinda of geek,
i've know about RSS for years
but never used it
i think its because i'm all about judging a book by its cover
so i like to see content
in its native environment.
bad webdesign shouldn't equal bad content
but that essentially how I
and probably many other users filter the internet
its pretty scary
how important first impressions are
on the internet, and also in other aspects of life!
you've already made an conclusion about myself (i'd imagine?)
for me, who has never used rss
but tends to always build website which spit out rss
for the people who do use it,
i always get to my content through bookmarks
sometimes i'll go months with out visiting a site
or sometimes i'll be checking back daily,
but essentially
its kinda scary
how I can navigate to a handful of my favorite blogs/sites
how quickly i can access the information
and skim read many of the entries
and decide if I want to push in a level deeper (e.g read the article).
oddly enough this is the same now for me when i am reading
sometimes i will literally skim a whole chapter
picking up key points and concepts
but missing out on the 'meat'
having to skip back
and force/encourage/make? something myself
take in the information
question its value, its reliability
and make an opinion of it,
but yes
my point was
as the geek i am
i don't see RSS becoming part of my daily life,
but its interesting how for many people
its the way they access the material they need
for their daily 'skim'
x
http://twitter.com/uniquelau
This was probably by far the best comment I've gotten.