to Make Your Class Unavoidable like this guy

RSS is a family of Web feed formats used to publish frequently updated works— such as blog entries, news headlines, audio, and video—in a standardized format. Source:

We’re going to use the RSS feed made available with a blog from Blogger.com

Signing up is very easy. Just follow the steps.

And publishing posts are a breeze. The first thing I’ll post is an assignment schedule for February

Now, my student can know what’s happening in class even if they never show up.

But what if your kids “forget” to visit your blog? You can have them use a Widget. A web widget is a portable chunk of code that can be installed and executed within any separate HTML-based web page by an end user without requiring additional compilation. Source:

A widget is something you put on a webpage, like your Facebook, that gives you information from somewhere else.

You can make your own widgets by using a service like Widgetbox.

Customize your widget.

pretty widget

When you’ve finished turning the RSS feed of your blog into a widget, share the widget address with your students.

Oh, look! There’s a widget on my Facebook.

What if you have some students who don’t use the MyFace or SpaceBook? Well, there are a couple of non-web- based solutions.

Google Desktop is an application you students can download to their computers. It has several fun bells and whistles, but we’re concerned with its RSS reader.

This is what Google Desktop looks like. Clock. Weather. News. Pictures. RSS Reader. Check the logo. We want to go to options and add the URL of our Blogger page.

When we’re finished, the entries from the blog are listed here.

If your students don’t like the Google, then they can use a RSS feed aggregator. FeedDemon is a popular one.

Your students are already using this technology to stay informed about music, movies, and their friends. It makes sense that they should also use it to stay informed about your class.