Finally....RSS and feeds and technology troubles!

This is the post that I wrote yesterday and tried to post here for about two hours:

Today is probably not the best time for me to be making this entry. Before I sat down to do this, I was feeling really great about the progress I've made in being a Web 2.0 citizen. I've created this blog for class purposes and can see many ways that I might use it in the future for both personal and professional purposes. I have even added a blog for my AP Spanish Language class with pages for each student where they have posted their own writing and commented on each other's posts. I love all the possibilities for using a wiki, also. I think that if my students had daily access to computers in my classroom, I would feel more comfortable having them create vocabulary wikis and wikis devoted to books we are reading and even helpful tips for the AP exam. I'm still working on how much I can give them to do outside of class without it being too much for those who might not have Internet access at home.

I set up my RSS feed earlier this week using Google Reader. I chose some professional blogs and sites that I discovered by searching and from our assignment last week (http://blog.kathyschrock.net/ ,http://glieux.wordpress.com/); several news sites since I talk about current events around the world in my classroom (www.cnn.com ,

http://5newsonline.com/feed/ , www.france24.com); and, some of our classmates' blogs just to keep up with what is going on with them. I am still overwhelmed by the amount of news and updates that are available, and I'm not sure that I will even be able to process all that I have subscribed to, but I think that once I make looking at the reader a habit, I will be glad that I am making use of this aggregator technology. I'm certainly not getting even a quarter of this information now, so anything I see will be an improvement for me personally and professionally. I have already unsubscribed from one site that did not have the kind of content that its title indicated. I don't need any extra "junk mail" to weed through every day. As I teach my students, just because it is out there does not mean that it is worth our time.

I took some time this week to clean out my personal email account, also. I am looking forward to the time when I will have fewer emails to delete every day.

Finally, I came here to add this post to my blog about RSS feeds and my experience. I have had no end of trouble just creating this post!!! I am so frustrated right now that I have yelled at my husband, threatened to throw the computer out the window, and almost literally pulled my hair out! There is some problem with the way that I have set up my Google accounts, with Google Chrome, with Blogger, or all of the above. Right now, as I'm typing this, the screen has a haze over it, and there is a box that says, "You have logged out from another location. Do you want to log in again?" The only choices are, "Yes, I want to log in again." and "Close." I have tried both multiple times, but I get nowhere. I have logged out and in on both of the email accounts that are linked to this blog with no luck. Finally, by some hook or crook, I was able to access the new post button AND the new post page so that I can make this entry now. However, the "log out/log in" box keeps popping up. And, I can't publish!!

If anyone has any suggestions (other than those mentioned above, i.e. throwing the computer out the window, etc.), I would be open to reading them. I want to call Google and yell at someone, but I doubt that would be effective in solving the problem.

I'm still in love with technology, but today we are definitely involved in a "lovers' quarrel".

Tonight, Monday, I am having no problems at all with this post.  I did finally get to a place where I could access a Help forum for Blogger.  Others were reporting the same problem, and someone who seemed to know what was going on was reporting to Google Engineering.  I made my plea for the problem to be fixed soon.  After posting to the discussion help forum for this class, I gave up.  Today, everything is working like a charm!  I am so glad.

Also, I realized that I might not have been clear enough about the advantages/disadvantages of RSS and feeds.  If anyone is still reading this monster post, I think that the advantages are having all the news that I am truly interested in located in one place and that I can read headlines quickly and go to the full article directly if I want to read more.  I tend to scan a lot and only read details of a few items, so this works for me.  Disadvantages would be the sheer massive numbers of articles that can accumulate in my feed and the fact that I might get too overwhelmed to read anything at all.  I am definitely going to need  to set up some folders and try to read professional materials, general news, and personal blogs and sites separately.  I am very pleased so far with the full-site Google Reader, but the mobile version seems a bit more clumsy, at least for me.

Enough for now...hopefully things will smooth out for this week's assignments.