RSS in (outside of?) the classroom

I think one of the most powerful tools of RSS, especially in the way we're using it in conjunction with student blogs, is the ability to share classroom-related ideas outside of classroom time in real-time.

Similar to what I said in my last post, RSS, as a conglomeration of work and play, brings those two things together. I'm able to see the moment someone from our class updates his/her blog, and read it when I was in the middle of something else. It prompts me to think about ideas we've been talking about in the classroom outside of the classroom. In essence, learning invades my personal time. Of course, I could choose to ignore the updates until I'm ready to put on my student-cap again, but the possibility for that kind of overlap is there. It keeps conversations going, and keeps classroom topics near the top of the list of things that I'm thinking about.

That also, though, brings up a limitation of RSS. In order to get the full scope of what's going on, each person must be subscribed to each other person's blog. In other words, RSS is not a message board.

I guess what that means is that RSS isn't designed in such a way as to promote the kind of horizontal learning described in the articles we read for today. It might be more useful in a more hierarchical model (i.e. students subscribe to the professor's blog, and are led on through a learning experience that way as the instructor posts helpful and insightful links, articles, and thoughts).

Google reader has some new, more socially-oriented tools for sharing, commenting on, and "liking" posts that pop up in your reader with your other google contacts (or with the greater population, I think), but from what I can tell they're in the early stages and not many people pay attention to them (but maybe I just don't have a lot of contacts that use Google reader). Clearly, though, the issue of sharing, commenting, and creating a discussion surrounding posts that show up in RSS feeds is something Google is thinking about.