Pluck It!

I've mentioned RSS feeds a little in the past. Andrew Ross' Primary Teacher UK Blog has a good guide to RSS if you've never heard of it before. Basically it's a technology that allows websites to publish material so that other people may view it without visiting their webpages. You can collect and read RSS feeds using a newsreader program and it's a great way of pulling together a lot of information.

At some point I really need to try out a few of the other newsreaders that are available. Andrew Ross mentioned the new Google Newsreader program in his Blog yesterday which looks interesting. The program I currently use is called Pluck.

Pluck integrates with your web browser and gives you a new button on the bar at the top of the screen. When you click it all your feeds appear on the left of the screen and you can click on each one to read them. It's really easy to set up, I haven't had any problems with it and it's also free.

It's quite easy to end up with an interesting mix of feeds sitting side by side in your newsreader. I've currently got lots of education news feeds such as BBC News, Education Guardian, Telegraph News and the TES Media Blog. My love of Rugby Union is reflected in the BBC Rugby Union feed and Telegraph Sport. More personal choices include the new Doctor Who series' feed (I'm reliving my childhood) and webcomics feeds such as Scarey Go Round (a quirky British cartoon strip).

Many blogs can automatically generate newsfeeds. This site and the 'In the News...' site have one as well as blogs that I mention fairly frequently such as Little Miss Teacher and Primary Teacher UK.