This morning I cleaned house. I swept the floor, wiped the counter tops, vacuumed and started laundry. But, that's not all of the cleaning I accomplished. I decided it was time to clean out my Google Reader page. I use RSS subscription to keep up on the latest educational and technology trends. It is amazing how much I have learned from reading blogs and following updates by my favorite vendors.I go through times where I subscribe to so many feeds that my inbox becomes unmanageable. It can be overwhelming to see unread items topping 200. However, much is valuable. I frequently bookmark ideas with my delicious or diigo accounts.
This morning, after reading through current posts, I realized I had a long list of feeds that I could not even remember why I had subscribed. This is what brought me to the next phase of "house cleaning". One by one I clicked on the feed and looked to see when the last post was made. Surprisingly, I found some from 2007! Needless to say, I decided to unsubscribe. I then decided that if someone hadn't posted in 6+ months I would unsubscribe.
Well, now I have hindsight and wonder if I should have changed my criteria. I am lax at posting myself. Does that make my thoughts unworthy of subscription? This is a thought to ponder. My resolution to this problems is as follows. I will continue to visit links posted on Twitter, Plurk, and other venues of my Professional Learning Network (PLN). Many of these sites I will subscribe to. Some will have great value, some will not. That is how it works.
My hope is that I might inspire someone who has not used RSS subscriptions to give it a try. I can honestly say that my teaching and learning as well have been greatly changed by the content I have gleaned from my subscriptions.
