Tuesday 10th June - Work for 9TA

Aims:
To learn what RSS is
To learn what RSS is for
To use RSS feeds in one or two different online tools.

Starter:
Find out what RSS stands for and what the symbol/picture for it is. Write this up on your blog (just 3 or 4 lines) and leave a comment here to say you have finished.

Main activity:
1. Set up igoogle - create a new tab showing different blogs from the class. You could also do a comments feed. Next customise your homepage - find other useful RSS feeds on the internet - you might want to look for news on one of your interests, a feed of pictures of your favourite band from Flickr or something else.
2. Write a short blog post to check that your RSS feed works

Extension task: Try out google reader - this is kind of like an e-mail reader except it monitors all kinds of information such as news feeds for you and allows you to get all your information in one place.

Plenary:
Write a blog post evaluating Igoogle and/or Google Reader. What was good about them, what would you like them to do?

Homework: Computer Simulations: What is a computer simulation, why are computer simulations useful, find an example of one that has been in the news. Write your answers on paper or on your blogs.