Google Reader beats everything so far

A couple of really interesting observations from my wanderings so far...

1.) Building up a skill base in Education Technology is a process. Everyday I am awed by references of people who have been using these "new" applications for years. I immediately feel realllllly behind and guilty that I was not more on top of my game. Then I interact with friends and colleagues whom I respect and mention anything web 2.0 and they immediately consider me some sort of Guru. Weird.

2.) Once I made the decision to jump in, the path has kind of opened up for me little by little. It always seems that I come across something just when I need it. More likely, it was always there and I just didn't pay it any mind until I had a use for it (Hopefully some people are finding this blog "just when they needed it").

So, here I am bookmarking everything in sight in Delicious and I realize that most of it is blog entries. I don't know much about blogs, but I figure if I find a person interesting enough to bookmark, I might like to keep current on their new blog postings. But, I know deep down, that the chances of remembering to keep checking that site for updates is slim to none.

This is the whole point of Google Reader!!!!

All you need is a Google account. Get one even if you don't want to switch over to Gmail (but I highly recommend you do) just to use all of the other cool stuff.

1.) Go to you Gmail inbox and look across the top. Click on Reader.

2.) This is where ALL the blogs you subscribe to are automatically kept up to date. It even indicates which blogs have NEW postings you haven't read yet. Click on the blog title to get a brief description. Click on the headline to get the full post.

This is where it gets REALLY cool...

You can manually subscribe to any blog you know the URL for

OR

This is called an RSS feed. The symbol looks like this:

As you are wandering around on the web, any place you see this symbol you can subscribe to that feed. Simply click on it, choose Google Reader from the list, and it is automatically added to your list. As an example, go the the New York Times and choose blogs from the column on the left. It takes you to over 50 feeds you can subscribe to based on your interests from food to politics. You will start to notice this symbol EVERYWHERE!

Now, I can literally be updated on 30 different blogs (friends, news, ed tech) by simply going to Google Reader after checking my email every day.