Lesson5-Think, Explore, and Explain

Think

Which sites do you visit regularly? What provisions do you currently make to keep yourself up to date on new content posted to your favourite sites?

I regularly visit the sites of Japan Times, uefa.com(about soccer), and wikipedia. I register such sites for Bookmark. So, I can easily keep myself up to date on new content posted to my favorite sites.

Explore
A website that displays a button similar to the ones here on the right has an RSS feed that you can subscribe to. Visit a few of the sites that you use fairly regularly (4~5 is fine). Now, can you find an RSS button? You might need to scroll down the page, and you will need to look carefully if it is a 'busy' page. Which of your favourite sites provide an RSS feed? Which ones don't? Can you think why not?
The sites of CNN , The Japan Times and BBC have the RSS button. I think that it is because these sites are frequently updated and are given frequently new contents.
On the other hand, W3 and the Japanese dictionary site called Goo have no button of RSS. In the case of W3, it is because W3 is a secret site and a limited site to limited users, students and professors, and so on. In the case of the Japanese dictionary site, it is because the site is a negative site which does not add frequently new contents.

Explain
Write a post reflecting on RSS with reference to the four Key Questions. (SCICU e-Portfolio)
Social Computing Key Questions:
1. What are the main skills needed to use social software?
In order to use RSS, it is necessary to understand about tool bar which RSS belogs to, and characteristics of diverse sites. The characteristics are whether some sites are added frequently new contents and updates or not, and whether the sites have RSS button, and so on.

2. What are the affordances (what the software makes possible, what it impedes)?
RSS can make us able to keep ourselves up to the latest contents and posts of our favorite sites. And, it enables us to make deep relationships with our favorite sites.

3. How can the technology be used to network professionally and connect users to learning resources?
The RSS of news sites and academic sites such as CNN and Newton can be used to professions and academic purposes, because these RSSs can give latest information and discoveries according to such purposes.

4. What learned skills and understandings may promote your development as an effective learner in the digital age?

It is useful and helpful for RSS users to learn about the relationships and the connections between RSS and bookmark, tool bar, google reader. It enables them to save times to search latest information and to not to miss important discoveries and updates of their RSS.