5650: Using Blog and RSS Feeds

This week our reading for IT-5650 was an article by Richard E. West, Geoff Wright, Bruce Gabbitas, and Charles R. Graham entitled Reflections from the Introduction of blogs and RSS Feeds into a Preservice Instructional Technology Course. This article was interesting to me because it talked about the use of blogs in teacher technology courses…but the thing that stuck out most to me was the difficulty they found students had with the technology itself, specifically the RSS feeds. The reason this struck a chord with me is because just last week I was trying for the 2nd time to figure out how to set up RSS feeds. I know we set it up before as part of one of the previous ILT classes in the certificate program, and I have the little RSS icon on my browser, but I have no idea now how to request (?? Is request even right??) a feed. I tried to link a blog I was interested in, but on any other page when I click on the RSS button, it does not take me to that blog. I am sure this is silly information for more experienced bloggers and RSS feeders, but I will be spending my time on Google looking for articles on how to set this up right. I know I had it at one point, but clearly it is not like riding a bicycle. This is good to keep in mind when using technology in my classroom. I want my students to learn new things and things that are useful to them, but I need to make sure they do not walk away from the experience more confused and frustrated than before.