SCASL Thing #8: RSS and Newsreaders – the task is to find our rss reader shared link and provide it to our public.  So here is my Google Reader shared link.  However, I must tell you that I’ve not used it up until today.  I went and put a couple of the posts that I starred in there just so something would be in there.  I’ll have to remember to “share” what I star from now on!

SCASL Thing #9: Finding Interesting Blogs – the first part of the task is to use search tools to locate interesting blog feeds.  Okay, I COULD do this, but I already have way to many feed to get through now! See also my previous post All Together Now – Think#2.  I currently have 185 subscriptions in my Google Reader.

The second part of the task was to blog about the experience of finding feeds.  That I will do!  Most of the feeds I’ve subscribe to were found in 4 ways:

1) Following the leader:  I started by following the blogs Cathy Nelson listed in her blog roll or that she specifically told me to check out.  Then I followed the ones those folks followed, and just kept doing this.  You’d think that would be way too many, but you’ll find that the groups tend to follow the same blogs.

2) Professional readings:  there are more and more blog links showing up in the professional journals and websites I already visit.

3) Personal interests:  Most of these were news, entertainment, or author/book sites that I visited often, but now the content comes to me instead of me going out to find it!

4) Recommendations/Mentions:  If a blog I follow mentions or links to a blog, I’ll usually go check it out.  If I like what I see/read, I’ll add it to my reader.

Lifehacker (which is unfortunately blocked at school) recently posted Top 10 Obscure Google Search Tricks. Here are three I thought would be useful for you and our students:

• What time is it in __________ (fill in the blank with the city/county to find the current time)

• Converter calculator, not just for money, but things like: “Find out how many teaspoons are in a quarter cup (quarter cup in teaspoons) or how many seconds there are in a year (seconds in a year) or how many euros there are to five dollars (5 USD in Euro).”

• Use Google image search to show you foreign language words and phrases. For example type in “jicama” which is a Mexican potato and you will see what one looks like.

CopyrightWatch recently posted a listing of works that have now passed into the Public Domain, includes such authors as Laura Ingalls Wilder (Little House on the Prairie); Jean de Brunhoff (Babar); J.M. Barrie (Peter Pan); and lots, lots more!

World Maths Day – “Join us in a celebration of numbers as children from across the globe unite in their quest to set a world record in answering mental arithmetic questions.” For ages 5 – 18.

And finally, here is the Commoncraft tutorial for RSS that I mentioned in the last Tech Tuesday newsletter.