RSS Feeds #4-Final Reflection

Here is my final learning/reflection on my RSS feeds.  At first I thought this assignment might be a bit overwhelming, having to check feeds several times.  But I was pleasantly surprised!  Since everything was neat and organized in one place, it made it so easy!!

Here is my final RSS screen dump picture.  This picture is from 11-11-11 (Happy Veteran's Day-and thank you all who served-I have a friend who just returned earlier this week from his second tour.  His family is throwing him a Welcome Home Party tonight).  Alas, I digress...

Just to cover all the feeds I will go through each one... hang on!
TechLearning:  I have learned some useful tidbits from this site, but they seem to update once every week or so, not as often as other sites.  I tried one article that looked interesting, PaperToolsPros, but the link took me to "nowheresville".  There was a link, but no article associated with this.  Shame, it could have been interesting.
NPR:  I'll admit, when I hopped on RSS today, and there were 228 new feeds for NPR, I panicked!  I am not going to catch up on that many feeds. :)  But I did check into a few.  Sad news, the Western Black Rhino has been declared extinct.
On a more somber note to Veteran's day there was an article that caught my attention, "Treating Soldiers With Severe Combat Wounds."  This caught my interest because of the soldier friend that just returned home.  He is trained in nursing care, as well as care-flight experience. Because of his rare knowledge, he was assigned to be a "flying hospital" so to speak.  He would ride in the helicopters to pick up wounded soldiers and then give medical treatment while flying back to the army hospital.  I remember him saying this was just about the worst job to have, you see the absolute worst that can happen.  He second assignment was to work with different army hospitals (the latter part of his duty) to shut them down.  He worked to shut down hospitals and help send soldiers and other medical teams back home.  Thankfully my friend is not home safely as well.  This article reminded me of such sacrifice.
Weblogg-ed:  Unfortunately, no learning here.  This hadn't been updated in 4+ months.
ISTE Connects:  There was one article in particular that was interesting, "Mechatronics Engineers a Future for Students".  This was quite interesting, as I'd not heard this term before.  Basically, in encompasses multiple engineering aspects into one: mechanical, electrical, computers, but can also include molecular (nanochemistry and biology), optical, and control engineering.  Wow!  This reminded me a bit of robotics club in schools. 
EduTech Today:  Sadly no updates in 5+ months.
First Grade Fanatic!:  I had really enjoyed this site because I taught first grade.  It's always fun to fine "gems" from other teachers who "speak your language".  First grade was my love language.  She has so many great resources that I didn't just stop digging with my feeds.  I went browsing through archives, so many great treasures.  I found all kinds of classroom ideas, themed and ideas by subject.  I'll have to keep this site for future use when I jump back into the classroom.  Keep the good times rolling! (I may even "test" a few ideas on my little guy.)--This lady also follows the First Grade Parade blog and use her scarecrow idea, fun to see blogs I follow, follow each other!  Good picks!
First Grade Parade:What cute and great writing activities.  This could go great with writing across the curriculum and social studies.  Have the kids write about being a pilgrim... too bad my little guy can't read and write!  We would do this at home.  Save this in my bags of tricks for school.
 EdtechSandyK:  She only posts every few weeks, but she had just updated with an article about Twitter Education accounts.  She had asked people to send in their favorite Twitter Ed links.  She putting together a "if you could only follow 5" article.  No new ideas yet, but I will have to check back to see what people respond.
EducationWorld:  Two articles that were new, on on space and one on politics.  Both would have been above the grade level I taught, but there were some good ideas that could be adapted.
Edutopia: There was an article video that was interesting, "Teaching math to middle school boys".  While I don't teach middle school, it's always interesting to see how boys learn.  So different from girls.  (Plus I have a little boy).  The school was also located in Louisville, KY.  Mu husband and I just moved from here, where we lived 5 years.  So that was fun to see a school from our "old home".  While it didn't share as many ideas, it did show how this teacher adapted to teaching boys and found ways to engage, interact and motivate them.
Teachers Using Technology:  No new feeds in month. :( 
Free Technology for Teachers: There was an article on Google+ that was interesting.  I've just joined and don't know much about it yet, but he was explaining how he could create separate groups with Google+ Pages and make a pages separate from his personal page.

I've learned quite a bit already from these feeds.  There are quite a few ideas that I'll have to save for future classroom use.  I hope to be able to use some of the free technology resources as well one day.
I'm hoping that students could benefit from using a few of these technologies to write and try new lesson plans and create their own writings.

Thanks for sticking with this post!  A+ for perseverance...