When I first started fleshing out my network, it was all about blogs. I blogged, I read blogs daily, I commented my heart out and spent many a night typing late into the evening trying to get ideas down juuuussstt right.
Soon after that it was podcasting. I listened to podcast every day during my 45 minute commute, I recorded a podcast at least every week or so, and was obsessed with exploring ways to incorporate podcasting into the school environment.
Now I find myself presenting for teachers face to face more than ever and doing presentations many of which are focusing on new technologies. I can’t tell you how many times I’m restructuring or tweaking a presentation to incorporate new sites or examples just minutes before clipping on the microphone. And given travel schedules, baby schedules, work schedules, and so on, I find that I’m spending more time on sites like Twitter, and less in other locations.
I don’t read blogs like I used to. I don’t pop open the aggregator nearly as often and read through what’s there. Devoting an hour to reading new blogs seems like a luxury that just doesn’t come around very often. However, I do read a ton of blog entries still. Instead, I read the ones people recommend on Twitter. Or that people email to me and say are “Must-Reads”. Or as I”m searching for tidbits to put into presentations, tools to incorporate in my work, or scrolling through the DEN and various Ning message boards, I read the blogs that are linked to there. And of course, so long as I read one post on a blog, I often scroll through and read several.
So while I do read a ton of blog posts, I just find that the aggregator is getting less and less use.
I’m curious to hear whether other people are experiencing the same sort of shift. Do you still use the aggregator like you first did when you entered into the world of blogging? Or have you shifted to other locations/tools/sites to get your EdTech info kick?
The reason I ask is that I still show people how to set up Bloglines and Google Reader in presentations, and I”m wondering if I’m living in the past. Should I be showing them how to set up My Yahoo, iGoogle and Netvibes instead? Is that more relevant at this point?
Whatcha think?
I still read blogs but I’m a dork as are most blog writers. Over time, more and more people will read blogs but if you look around at the average faculty of an average school it is very difficult to get them to start aggregating feeds in a reader because they’re not going to understand the usefulness of it until it personally helps them.
Sure there are a lot of people relying on their twitter network to provide good posts - but the danger is that you will end up with herd mentality where you have limited diversity in reading. I’ve actually gone the opposite way and use my Google Reader more, only following links in twitter if I feel like it. Learning how to manage RSS should still be an important skill because you can manage so many different information sources e.g. blogs, comments from Flickr, photos from your Flickr contacts, TweetScans, feeds from Ning Forums.
Personally, while I am a big lover of twitter, you can end up spending more time using twitter than your feed reader.
I’m basically with Sue on this. My Reader remains the staple of my PLN. It contains the real “meat” of my learning. Twitter is the snack. You can’t live on snacks. You need meat.
Don’t forget, anyone who uses a reader or aggregator is still pretty far ahead of the curve. I just introduced my teachers to Netvibes and many of them think it is pretty fantastic (others still question, what’s the point). I guess my point is that if teachers are becoming consumers of blogs (for professional or personal reasons) who cares how they are doing it. I do love Netvibes, tho.
I use Bloglines extensively. I’ve tried Twitter, but just don’t get it. I also have iGoogle set up, but don’t look at it all that often. Bloglines and Del.icio.us keep me busy enough.
Twitter is fabulous if you’ve got a bunch of friends/ colleagues/ quest-sharers who are also Twittering.
But if you’re out there on the leading edge within your current real world community, surrounded by folks who don’t blog, have never contributed to a wiki, and wouldn’t know an aggregator if it jumped up and bit them, then a feed reader is still where it’s at. IMHO.
And yet I agree that it’s difficult to win non-users over… I had to have a bunch of blogs (with differing posting rates) that I wanted to keep up with before I could see the point. For me the hunger had to precede the meal. Anyone pointing excitedly to a feed reader before then? Would have just gotten an “I’m satisfied… not hungry” response from me.
Twitter definitely helps me find new blogs to read, but often I would rather “RSS it” into Google Reader (which is also a plugin on my iGoogle page) instead of just opening it up in a tab. It gives me the opportunity to share it via Reader, and star favorite posts that I may want to come back to. (Plus you get all the benefits of the magical Google searching!)
I read via bloglines. To be honest I am not really interested in twitter… I just don’t get it. I don’t want a snippet… I want to read the whole thing and I am finding I still get wonderful professional development and ideas from blog reading so why would I move away from it.
Steve,
I completely agree with you. My tendency now is to flitter around, relying on my current network to guide me on what they are seeing and hearing. And likewise, I find myself blogging less frequently and simply sending out little Tweets about interesting articles, posts or websites. I think that’s the advantage to Twitter, just to be concise and not having to think too much about how you are writing. So mistakes are forgiven and expected. Lee
I have to agree with Jody in that I don’t want a snippet I want a meatier exchange. Like I’m seeing and getting with this post. I just don’t see this type of depth of discussion on twitter. I am also intrigued with twitter for its different type of communication. I think the two are very different, and I am looking forward building my community on twitter. It is a very time consuming endeavor and I must say that if given a choice I still prefer my reader.
Chalk another one up for Sue. We need some to initially dig through the rubble to uncover the gems. Lisa Johnson suggests this task is becoming a key role in the 21st century marketplace.
The power of twitter/blogs/rss is that it connects everyone to share their individual diggings and develop relationships with trusted diggers. But if you don’t dig and share your findings, you’re only reaping about 35% of the benefit. The more you participate, the more specific your content will become, because your network will help to hone it for you because you’re doing the same for them.
2/26/2008
I still rely on blogs and bloglines as a staple of my PLN. I get so much valuable information that way and connect with so many others through comments, blogrolls, etc. Don’t stop teaching folks how to do this. Yes, they may move beyond JUST blogs to other activities, but that doesn’t mean they leave blogs behind. And it doesn’t mean blogs aren’t a terrific place to begin building that network.
Hi Steve,
I am involved in professional development and pre-service teacher education, and I find that focusing on RSS (and all the web apps that have RSS feeds they can aggregate) makes for a good starting point with most educators.
As mentioned above, RSS is ahead of the curve for many teachers, so I wouldn’t want to take it out of my strategies for teaching them to live a digital life quite yet.
Troy
2/26/2008
Many educators are:
* unfamiliar with RSS and the possibilities - this is still new stuff;
* unlikely to be convinced that there’s enough value in Twitter to make it worth sifting through the chatter;
* not nearly as attached to their screens as most of us geekier folk.
Just use caution or else you may come across to your audiences as being out-of-touch with the realities of the typical classroom.
Hi Steve
I went straight for the likes of igoogle, pageflakes, protopage etc. Mabye because I only came to the blogsphere recently! Also have to agree with ‘lemon’ that many/most educators are not that interested in devoting extra time to such pursuits.
Patricia
PS: you might be interested in adding your blog information to the International Edubloggers Directory at http://edubloggerdir.blogspot.com
I still get as much from reading blogs as I did when I began about 2 years ago, but I no longer have the luxury of spending as much time doing it, either. I find that my twitter network makes up the difference. I don’t really sit around feeling less informed because my twit buddies keep me up to speed - in 140 characters or less! I definitely think the term microblogging is apt for this tool.
Posting on my blog is still important for 2 primary reasons. First, my students (teachers and educators) use my blog and encourage me to actively keep it up. Secondly, posting things requires an act of reflection on my part. I find that I’m actually mentally writing posts during my commute, during lunch, etc., as I think about topics that are professionally important to me. I no longer get as pumped by posting as I once did but there are important reasons for me to keep at it.
Hi, I work on electronic media for the Association for Career and Technical Education. I love podcasts but I must confess I listen more to those on personal topics than to those on education and technology. I am actually using my RSS reader more often lately, and have not started Twittering–I don’t think I know enough people on Twitter to make it worthwhile!
Great blog!
Steve,
I love the new look of your blog. I DO find myself using Google Reader less often, but only because I trust it to capture stuff.
3/23/2008
Hey Steve,
I tried to twitter after the Summer Workshop…it just didn’t stick to much chatter for me! With Grad school, work, and presenting… I can hardly keep up with email. I am right there with R. Rowe on the IGoogle and Google reader. I hit my Igoogle every time I am online and then just mouse over the blogs for updates and I LOVE the star feature when I don’t have time for the full read! Here is a question back at you… what are your favorite “Blog Must reads”??? Yours is one of my favs of course…. any I should checkout?
[…] blogless Add So after admitting that blogs have slid down in my priority list, and realizing that I just don’t read through them like I used to, I saw a post by Doug […]
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