Some great RSS resources came across my Bloglines aggregator today, and it’s making me itch to get my school up to speed on the wonders of aggregation. First there’s TheFuss which is a wiki created by the learning object gurus north of the border who are without question way ahead of anyone else in thier thinking of how RSS might facilitate the distribution and sharing of learning objects. (And I have to tell you, when I think about how THAT might end up…sheesh. What an amazing vision.) And then there’s this cool experiment that shows away to combine a bunch of different feeds into a blogroll on a page. I’m sure there’s much more ahead.

Ironically the first call I got this morning was from a freshman English teacher who wanted to know how he could set up an e-mail list to send out homework assignments to parents…he’s been getting a lot of requests. I suggested he create a Web log and add the addresses to the notification list. That way he not only gets it online for reference and archiving, he also automatically notifies parents. Do I have to relate his reaction? Now the question is, do I broach RSS?

The possibilities here are almost limitless. If every teacher had an aggregator set up, he or she could be getting the relevant links from the tecHCentral site I’m building. And as we grow the Web log as Website, there would be more and more feeds to subscribe to. And if parents got the hang of it… I know, I’ve already dreamed this dream too many times to count. I’m just so impatient for it to become reality…and it will.

Tim Wilson from the Hopkins School District in Minnesota is leading what looks to be a group of teachers into the Web log universe. I like how he starts his first post:

Imagine having a Web-based writing system that any person could use without knowing any HTML. Imagine having your students getting instant feedback from their peers as they develop a writing assignment. Imagine communicating with your students’ parents or the larger community by sending an email and having it displayed on your Web page. Imagine your students developing a group project and gathering information and feedback from others around the world and having their final product published on the Internet.

The great thing is that even after doing this for almost two years now (I can’t believe it), that whole description still just sounds so cool to me. I think I might also add something along the lines of “Imagine being able to do it without spending any money!” I know that implies ownership of computers and access. But I still think for most schools, this is a no brainer. I’m getting more and more convinced as I see my own teachers start to “get it,” and I’ve been amazed at how many of them have. Here’s a sampling: Bill F., Jon D., John S., Darrell D., and Dan V. They’re all slowly but surely getting cranked up. And more are on the way.

Imagine that…