New Gadgets

A busy holiday period in which I've journeyed far and wide but in a technological sense, not a geographical one. In fact I haven't ventured out of Jakarta and instead I've been trying to keep myself technologically relevant by catching up on all that's happening in what's termed Education 2.0, an impossible task of course. I can only absorb so much and then my brain gets full, but I'm pleased to report success at least in creating a test podcast and accessing it via iTunes.

It's important to not only start using as wide a range of Web 2.0 tools as possible but using them repetitively so that I consolidate and refine my skills, and push the boundaries of what a particular tool can offer. As most to these tools are social in nature, it's important to consider how to reach as wide an audience as possible. I may develop an interesting and technically proficient podcast but what's the point if no-one listens to it. It's the same with blogging. Bloggers like people to read their blogs and so they need to attract readers.

Social networking sites can help in this respect as I realised when looking recently at Jacqui Cussen's Facebook profile. It was there that she made reference to her blog which I subsequently read and then subscribed to. In order to get the most out of blogs, it is important to subscribe to the ones that interest us. Feed aggregrators, like Google Reader, will regularly check the blogs that we have subscribed to and alert us to any new posts. We don't need to periodically check all those blogs ourselves, it's done automatically for us. Other tools, provided by free sites such as FeedBurner, enable us to check the number of subscribers to our blog and the number of visitors we have had. These statistics, when increasing, can encourage us to keep blogging and also to raise to raise the quality of our blogging.

So the message in the post is to SUBSCRIBE. It doesn't cost anything and you can always unsubscribe at a later date. You only need to remember to check your feed aggregrator regularly. A good way of doing that is to make that site the opening page when you start your web browser. Do it today.