This activity provided a wonderful opportunity to delve into RSS/aggregators, which I was aware of, but had little practical knowledge. My thoughts were focused on the need to identify sites of interest and then construct/implement an aggregator in a convenient way. The imagines audience for profing this exercise is the students in the fall information systems class. Much as we learned about creating a podcast and using Google docs for collaboration, becoming minimally proficient with RSS value and practice would be useful. Ideally, this tool serves to keep us informed of developments, with lower "search, browse + read" requirements.

Steps taken to increase awareness and proficiency:

1. Worked through short Google tour on using the Google readers as an RSS reader. This will provide information and insight into using an RSS reader, although I believe a reader integrated into Firefox would remove the need to log in to Google to see feeds (eases use).
2. Became aware of prepackaged bundles of feeds, arranged by topic. Looks like a path to rapidly plug in! Three feeds on Security were selected to provide some preparation for security class next semester. Spent some time over the weekend to use Google Reader and maintain awareness of selected topic - effective and saves time.
3. Compared the features of another RSS reader, NewsGator  with Google reader - behavior is similar with different user interface to obtain behavior. The NewsGator has additional enhancements to "learn" from the user preferences and selections - Google reader enhancements are obtained within the Google environment.

Also, wanted to investigate delic.io.us (sp?) subscription and use as it has been referenced repeatedly on podcasts. This feature, to share links and folders of collected links would be very helpful for quick reference and community building. I find the same characteristics through classes, available with Moodle.

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