LazyFeed – more real-time news

Although this has been around for a few months I have only been trying it out for a week. I thought I would give it a try to see how easy it was to use and how useful it might be.

LazyFeed allows you to create real-time, personalized blog searches. Information is gathered all over the blogosphere and sorted by a simple system of tags.  To use it you simply type in a tag or single-word search term and LazyFeed combs through millions of blogs and on-line video and image sites to find the information. LazyFeed returns videos, photos, and blog posts tagged with your topic tag term.

It is very easy and painless to sign on to develop your own list of topics. Once signed you are then prompted to add any term as a topic, which essentially means the search is saved and results will be returned in real time, so you get up-to-the-minute information.

You can enter as many topic searches as you like and then just let the the new feeds roll in. Your own space is called Monitor and each of the searches comes up as a large thumbnail or tile. At any time you can add more or delete those that are not useful.

If you want to view a a particular search more closely just click on the tile and it then enlarges to screen size for easy reading of the extra details about the entry. All contents are sorted by time and the latest contents are always at the top. To see the post click again to take you to the source.

There are also some drawbacks.

• Users can’t refine searches so you need think very carefully about the  search terms you use.
• There’s no way to tell LazyFeed to look for certain types of content within certain domains or accounts.
• There is no way to limit the stream to certain types of media or block certain tags (such as “marketing”) from appearing in the results.

Overall LazyFeed is a neat little tool that you don’t have to do much to use. You don’t have to look at it all the time, just check it when you want/need to.  It does not store up all the changes like the RSS aggregators so you don’t feel overwhemed if you have not looked at it in a while. I have discovered some interesting reading from using it.

Tabbloid- bridging the gap to Web2.0

I have been occassionally emailing teachers FYI messages about important information on various blogs. I don’t do it regularily because I don’t always have the time to put things together and many individual emails can  be overwhelming or too much for the staff.

So I have been looking at the tool called Tabbloid. I am considering it as a way of introducing some of  the teachers to some of the great educational  blogs. I know that blogs are not new and neither are the RSS feeds but there are many who still do not understand too much about them.

Tabbloid is a simple web application that allows you to submit a set of RSS feeds, along with an email.  Tabbloid  will then email your address a “print-ready” .pdf newsletter/magazine on whatever schedule you prefer. The newsletter/magazine aggregates together all the recent postings from the blogs you have chosen.

You could then send the digest to the staff, or students if that was your aim, in a simple format. They could choose to print it out or read it on their computers. This would hopefully whet their appetite for reading blogs and using RSS feeds themselves. Those who have been hesitant about using RSS and reading blogs may see the relevance and feel comfortable enough to begin use them for themselves

Technology tips on video – Tekzilla

The school year has begun and today we had the year 7 and year 12 students back with us. The rest will join us for classes tomorrow. All the student computers have been re-imaged and they will get them back over the next few days. The Year 7 and year 10 students will be receiving new laptops. All will also have Windows Vista as the operating system. There has been a lot of concern about using Vista and 1/3^rd of the staff have on their computers. I have not had a lot of time to work on my computer this week but, in some of the time I have had, I have been looking at to see what others have said about using Vista.

One of the things I have found is a site called Tekzilla.It had a tip on how to speed up Vista (episode 266). In fact Tekzilla provides daily tips on using all sort of digital technology and could be a great resource for tips on learning or teaching ICT use. The videos produced at Tekzilla produces videos that are short, very clear as well as being  interesting to watch.

At the moment, Tekzilla has almost 300 archived episodes available for viewing and can be added to your RSS reader. You also have a number of downloading and sharing  options.

 Episode 266 – Speed Up Windows Vista

Vista’s file indexing can even make super fast PC’s feel slow. So turn it off and speed up Vista’s look and feel.

 Whilst I am about it, I also saw in the Age Green guide a small piece about Encyclopedia Britannica. After its long history (almost 250 years) of providing information, it is changing its stance on user-generated content. Wikipedia and the like have obviously put pressure on the institution to change its age-old procedures. However, it is not going to be a free-for-all as those intending to be editors must register real names and addresses before they can do anything. After that their entries will be vetted before any changes will appear on the site.

Reading options and DailyLit

I have been doing a lot of reading in the holidays. It is nice to read widely and without feeling guilty about work for school that I could be doing. I have also been working on updating some tools I created for the crime fiction genre and I have been trying out some of the Flickr and Google tools to help students with (or give them some alternative approaches to) some of the class novels. I have also been doing some reading about e-books and books on-line

I tend to do a fairly good job of finding the time to read. I always have a book with me, in my bag. Any time I find myself waiting in a queue, I can pull out my book, rather than sitting or standing with nothing to do. (I really hate the loud mobile conversations that many others seem to have to have with whoever is on the end.) I also listen to audiobooks when I am driving, especially when I have 3 hour drives into the country. I am always looking for ways to encourage our boys to read, and for them to have positive reading experiences. I thought that I should have a look at the some of the other options for reading. DailyLit is just one option.

DailyLit is a free service that brings books (also free) (particularly classic books in the public domain) as excerpts, right into your inbox in convenient small messages that can take less than 5 minutes to read. For instance, reading The Count of Monte Cristo, via DailyLit, meant that the emails were about 500 words per day, about the size of an average email or blog post, and that title was free. This is not just an option for your computer, it also works perfectly well on a Blackberry or whatever other PDA you may have.  Sometimes there’s a small charge for the e-book (usually a modern book) but there are plenty in the free category.

Using DailyLit with students.

There is something about DailyLit that I believe could appeal to a number of the students at school. I think lot of boys would like to like to read serial e-novels. It could increase the anticipation of what is in the next chapter. This might then really heighten the interest for a positive experience.  It could also make the idea of reading the classics less daunting.

A lot of boys don’t always read regularly. They read in spurts, often when it becomes necessary to write about something they have read for class assessment. This could encourage them to read each day.

It could make it easier to analyse the books as well. The strategy would be to write about each section as it is read, rather than trying to think of something after the book is finished. The boys could look at individual characters, quotes, or storylines, in easily digestible parts on a daily basis. They could also be encouraged to try to anticipate what might happen next or examine how they believe a character might react to the situation.

There is also the possibility of some sort of on-line book club.  A group of students could negotiate and choose to read the same book and have the same sized parts posted at the same time each day. (You can choose how often or on what days you wish to receive instalments). An on-line chat area /blog/wiki could be set up for them to share their reading experiences. This could be done within a class, across the school or with students from other schools.

There are many genres to choose from and the numbers of books that are on offer is increasing all the time. You can browse by titles, authors or categories or enter in a discussion about some author or title, current piece of writing.

You can receive new updates with news of current offers and  has various features, including a To-Read queue, reader ratings and reviews, and a members page.

Have a look and try it out. I would be interested to find out if anyone has used this with students.

Icerocket – searching blogs and other media

On Phil Bradley’s  blog I saw a post about Icerocket, a search engine with a few differences.

 The search tab options are the first difference.

1.  When you visit the site the search tab option is by default set to ‘Blogs’ rather than ‘Web’, which is the second tab. As web users are increasingly looking for news, sharing ideas, views, etc., the development of the whole social media area, this makes more and more sense.
2. They also have added a ‘Twitter‘ search option as a tab. Is this the first search engine that has done that? I’m not sure that I would use this option a lot at school but for breaking news, it would be interesting.
3. MySpace and News and images round out the tabs.
4. You can subscribe to an RSS option for searches, which is also a strength for the search engine.  

I thought that I would give it a try. I was interested to see what was picked up in a search about the Public Transport in Melbourne, especially after the problems of the last few days. It is a controversial topic at the moment.

You have the option of simple or adv. search, which offers phrase searching, domain searches, etc.

Big buzz

The search engine also has a tool that they have named ‘The Big Buzz’. This is the part I found the most interesting.  If you use this tab and run a search Icerocket returns recent (less than 1 hour) results that it plucks from all the search options (weblogs, Twitter, Video, News, and Images). All results are arranged chronologically, with options for an auto refresh of 1, 3 or 5 minutes and, of course, an RSS option.

I like the way you get a good overview of what is being written about your topic. The rss is also a great boon for keeping up-to-date with what is happening. For students who have to develop ideas/folios/media files on particular topics this would be of great value. 

Trends

There is also a trends option in the left-hand column. I like looking at statistics and numbers so I always like these options.

Although it is not the one of the more visual search engines, that I favour, I can see potential in what it offers. I will be using it on other topics when I need some guidance/help with tools, ideas, etc. that may be of use in the education field.  You have the option to download the Icerocket tool bar, follow blog trends, have a blog tracker, etc as well from the homepage. Well worth having a look and doing some searching using this tool. I like the way you get a good overview of what is being written about your topic. The rss is also a great boon for keeping up-to-date with what is happening. For students who have to develop ideas/folios/media files on particular topics this would be of great value. 

 If I was in government or working for Connex, I would certainly be watching this.