My Random Keys

I've been out of the classroom now for about 5 years and don't get a "Summer Vacation" anymore. It was okay at first, but now that the kids are older, I wish I had a big ole summer again.  But now, thanks to the school district's energy saving program, full-year employees work 10 hour days during July and get each Friday off.  I'm really starting to like that!

There's never enough time to get all of that stuff done around the house.  Now, with No Work Fridays, I can sleep in and not do that stuff until next week because I wanted to play today.  Probably not listed in that 7 Habits of Deadly Productive People book, but it's working for me today.

This morning, my phone started beeping at sunrise. (Seems the battery going out was perfectly timed with the sun.) After laying there for a bit, I saw I had a message and checked it.  That led to the discovery of an interesting string of posts in FaceBook.  Pulling out the iPad, which was nearby already, I opened up Flipboard to quickly scan these interesting and I-can't-wait-another-minute-not-knowing-your-innermost-thoughts posts.  I learned a lot from Twitter and FBook, actually.  The iPad was handling the feeds quite well until I realized that one feed wasn't working. Twenty feet away, the laptop was sitting waiting to fix that flash-based error and I was off to the races updating other feeds.

Sleeping-in today took the form of several hours of personal and work online reading and doing using three different devices and three different OS's.  Yeah, I miss Summer Vacation again.

Sure, ever since you were a kid, you liked getting mail.  I remember the summers of waiting for Weekly Reader packets to be delivered to our country mailbox. Except for that nagging utility bill and his friends, we still expect things of importance to be delivered to us. Why not let that same expectation be useful in keeping up with important online news sources, like this blog?

Many blogs, wikis, and content-driven websites offer the ability to use an RSS feed to keep up with changes. Let my friends at Plain English give you the quick 3 minute run down.



RSS Feed in Plain English

Personally, I have used Google Reader with good success in teacher workshops. Easy to setup, use, and lots of online help.  For myself these days, I use my mail reader program.  MacMail uses an easy 'Add RSS Feeds' selection in the File menu to add the feed like any other mail drop in my inbox. Easy to see new feeds!

RSS Icon

Regardless of the tool you use, and RSS reader will help you keep in touch with your favorite sources by letting you know there is new digital-goodness waiting for you. Go ahead, try it out. Click the RSS icon at the top right of my page.



Adding RSS to:

• Google Reader - Google's Getting Started Guide / Newbie's Guide CNET /
• Google Reader - Downloadable Getting Started Guide from AISD Educational Tech
• Mac Mail
• MS Outlook

So today's plea is to try out your RSS legs. Add RandomKeys.com to your feed so you don't miss an ounce of juicy goodness.