Lesson5: blog post - Think, Explore, Explain

Think:
Which sites do you visit regularly? What provisions do you currently make to keep yourself up to date on new content posted to your favourite sites?
I regularly visit Yahoo! Japan, MSN, W3, and other sites of my hobby; sites about musicians and so on.
Now I visit each sites to know the up dated contents posted to my favorite sites.

Explore:
A website that displays a button similar to the ones here on the right has an RSS feed that you can subscribe to. Visit a few of the sites that you use fairly regularly (4~5 is fine). Now, can you find an RSS button? You might need to scroll down the page, and you will need to look carefully if it is a 'busy' page. Which of your favourite sites provide an RSS feed? Which ones don't? Can you think why not?
I found the RSS buttons in Yahoo! News, MSN News, and Sony Music Online. However, I cannot find the RSS buttons in W3 and other sites. I think Japanese pages tend not to have the RSS buttons because these are not in common in Japan yet.

Explain:
Write a post reflecting on RSS with reference to the four Key Questions.

Social Computing Key Questions:
1. What are the main skills needed to use social software?
To know what the RSS is and to understand how to use them beneficially.

2. What are the affordances (what the software makes possible, what it impedes)?
It shows the up-dated information of many sites in one page without visiting each sites.

3. How can the technology be used to network professionally and connect users to learning resources?
It can save the time to check out the newses by visiting every single sites, so people can learn easily.

4. What learned skills and understandings may promote your development as an effective learner in the digital age?
I can save the time to check out the news, and also I can find the topics which are interesting to me.