I decided to use a igoogle as my RSS reader. Most of my feeds that I am following are related to science or health as they are the topics I would like to teach if I did teach in a classroom. In the blog I am following, Healthy Fellows, there was an article about the food pyramid and about the public eating habits. I gave my input about the subject saying that so many individuals don't know how to eat healthy and having a solid, evidence-based nutritional food pyramid is essential to help guide the public's food choices.
One of my feeds I chose was the Yahoo Health News. I usually read the articles that come up on the main page when I visit Yahoo so subscribing to their feed brings all the information to me. Checking my RSS reader on different days, I saw current health topics such as the spread of "Western" diseases like obesity and diabetes to developing countries and an interesting article about behavior scientists using psychology to fight childhood obesity and improve students use of the federal school lunch program. At first it was a little difficult to find good resources for information. I was searching and googling for pages I couldn't use then I realized pages like yahoo or excite update their information daily and would be a great source for specific information.
I have learned numerous things from the feeds that I am tracking. The blog I am following about health and nutrition has current topics about healthy foods to eat and actually has recipes so I can choose to try out some of the healthy dishes. Another one of my feeds is NOVA and has several podcasts of current scientific news. In one of the podcasts I learned about how human emotions affect an individual spends money. I really enjoyed the podcasts.
I think using RSS feeds in the classroom would be a great way for students to stay up to date on current events. I think the podcasts could be implemented into the classroom by having students listen to the podcasts and summarize the main points. I know some schools have students watch tv and write down current events and some schools test and evaluate students' listening abilities and using the podcasts could be one way to work on those skills. The RSS feeds allows students to have their own individualized page of current events. They could have to check their page once a week say on a Monday and have to create summaries about a few articles due by the end of the week. I think RSS feeds could be very useful.
http://www.screencast.com/users/prudhom9/folders/Jing/media/af56041f-1cd9-4166-b27d-e717e72a83aa
The health and nutrition sites you are following with your reader sound interesting. One site you might want to check out is Spark People at http://www.sparkpeople.com/ This site is really popular in my area. A couple of nurses run a health and nutrition class that has a huge following, and this is one of the sites they have their members use. It contains health and nutrition tips, plus exercise information. And best of all it is free. I hope that one day soon, you will have a classroom to call your own and that you will be able to use this information with students. ~ Susan
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