Blogs - More than Meets the Eye

A blog is a type of website where entries are made (such as in a journal or diary), displayed in a reverse chronological order. If that was all there was to it, then I wouldn't be writing this in a blog right now. But I am, and here are a few reasons why.

- blogs are cheap
- blogs require almost no technical knowledge to set up
- blogs have a permission system to control who can post or comment

There is another less obvious reason. Most blogs, including this one, publish web feeds, also known as RSS feeds. Web feeds deliver new content directly to you as soon as it is published online. Not all browsers are able to display feeds but Safari and Firefox can. If you're using either of these browsers right now, click on the Site Feed link and see what happens.

Notice that the site feed displays what's new in the blog. 'Yes, but I could see that anyway in the blog', I hear you say doubtfully.

Here's the cool part. Imagine that there are 20 blogs that you follow. This is not as unlikely as it may seem; blogs are becoming an important and valid source of information. If you bookmark all 20 blogs, Safari is able to aggregate all 20 feeds into a single web page. In other words, you don't have to visit 20 different blogs to discover what's new; you just use Safari to aggregate all 20 feeds. Here's how.

- From the Safari menu, select Bookmarks > Add Bookmark Folder
- Create a bookmark folder. Name it something like 'Blog Feeds'.
- Navigate to a blog and look for its web feed link. They often appear as buttons like these: .
- Click the blog's web feed link and Bookmark it, saving it into the bookmark folder that you've just created. Repeat this process for all the blogs that you wish to monitor.
- From the Safari menu, select Bookmarks > Show All Bookmarks. Control-click the desired folder and choose View All RSS Articles.

'OK', you say, 'but I don't have 20 blogs right now that I follow'. Fair enough. But are there several news sources that you follow? Did you know that many web sites, especially news organisations, publish web feeds these days? For example, here's one for the BBC: . Click it and see for yourself! Follow the same bookmarking procedure as described above in order to aggregate news updates from your favourite sources into a single page.

Finally, there is one disadvantage of using your Safari bookmarks to aggregate web feeds; you're reliant on your own computer. There are alternative web-based aggregators that you can access using any web connected computer. One of the most popular is Bloglines.com. Here's what Will Richardson says in 'RSS: A Quick Start Guide for Educators" which you can find at www.weblogg-ed.com:

"the main advantage to Bloglines is that you can access it from anywhere you have an Internet connection. In other words, you don’t have to be on your own computer(s) with special software installed to read your news."

IT Forum Agenda

The IT Forum on Tuesday, 26 September is an opportunity for members of the IT Committee to have a say in the future direction of IT at Kambala. Your ideas and opinions are valued, which is why Mrs White plans to attend. To make sure that we use the time as productively as possible, let's discuss beforehand possible agenda items here. I've listed below a number of ideas and encourage you to comment. Afterall, it's your voices we want to hear. What are the REALLY important issues from a your perspective?

Agenda Ideas
- What 'things' need fixing?
- The Intranet - the good and the bad and the ugly
- Blocked sites - what is the 'reasonable' from a student's perspective?
- Communication - what are the BIG issues and what are some possible solutions?
- Laptops versus labs - pros and cons
- Interactive whiteboards - useful or a waste of money?
- Innovations in technology - what's happening 'out there' that we should be doing 'in here'?

Apple's Offers

As mentioned to a few Tech Angels on Friday, September 8th, I would like to know if you are interested in either of the two offers from Apple described below. Unfortunately, both events are during the school holidays.

1. Friday Oct 13th (end of school holidays): We are running a Kids Day at Apple primarily aimed at employees children. The day will include lots of activities in our "classrooms" with lunch etc. We would like to extend this invite to your students to participate in the day, perhaps working with the teenage group creating Scary Movie 7 (Friday 13th) or something similar.

2. Steve Doyle [Apple's National Professional Development Manager] is looking to "hire" a group of students to work as his "Video Crew" for the 18th annual Innovative Technology Schools Conference being held at UTS Sydney on December 12 - 15. These students will be engaged in filming & interviewing delegates & presenters, editing video and generally having fun. He would like to offer this to your students.

The second option sounds like a great opportunity and would look pretty impressive on your CV's it seems to me. But I understand that the timing may be impractical for some of you.

Please give this your immediate and serious consideration. If you are interested in either event, discuss it with your parents to get an idea of whether they're supportive - we'll need their permission in due course. You don't have to commit until we have all the details but I'd like to give Apple a pretty firm indication of our interest, if any, this week.

I'd REALLY like your feedback on this matter via comments on this posting before Wednesday., September 13th. Come talk to me in the interim if necessary. OK?

Thanks for our prompt attention to this request.