Monthly Archive for March, 2010

One of the most common requests that I can think of from newcomers to the “loosely coupled teaching” approach is:

“How do I roll together a number of feeds and produce a single RSS feed for them.”

Over the years I’ve recommended any number of approaches, from Yahoo Pipes to Grazr. But in trying to share a bunch of feeds with a colleague today, I stumbled on a feature of Google Reader I hadn’t used before that makes this dead easy. Named “Bundles,” these are essentially a simple way to publish a web page that represents a folder of RSS feeds from your reader. To make a bundle, simply click on a folder in Google Reader

Then Save it…

And voila, what results is a public HTML page aggregating the feed, with a subscribe button, as well as a link to the ATOM feed and OPML file.

I’m not suggesting everyone has to drop their current approaches and flock to GReader, just that this is yet another simple technique to add to the basket that makes combining, remixing and repurposing content that flows via RSS just that much easier. And that has to be a good thing. – SWL

So there’s been more discussion, both in the comment thread of my initial post and in emails, about how best to facilitate some sort of gathering of BC educational WPMUHeads (so sue me!) in conjunction with the June ETUG workshop at UVIc. I want to make it clear, *I’m* not in charge here, and if someone feels different and wants to do something different, have at ‘er, fill yer boots, etc.

A few things became clear that led us to our current thinking. One was that Sunday was likely a no-go; folks from UBC indicated they couldn’t make it, and many others, myself included, didn’t feel too inclined to give up our Sunday. Wednesday also meant an extra night staying over for those from away, so more cost and time away from the office, thus less desireable. And while we’re using the ETUG gathering as a convenient way to get together people who are already going to be together, we don’t want to hijack that event or create a competing draw. So…

What a few of us (me, Clint Lalonde from Camosun, Grant Potter from UNBC and Katy Chan from UVic) seem to have settled on is the idea of proposing two formal sessions as *part* of the ETUG conference; one, a technical session, on the top five lessons learned in implementing WPMU (a discussion hosted by Clint and Grant), and a second, less technical/more pedagogical “teaching with blogs/WPMU” session (for whom a few have stepped up as potential facilitators). My hope is that, first off , both of these will be accepted, and second that they’ll be really vigorous discussion sessions (hopefully there are conference rooms suited for this that *aren’t* lecture -style rooms), not “presentations.”

We’re also hoping these get scheduled on the Monday, so that we can all convene to the pub before the BBQ that night. Part of this exercise is about community building, and so hopefully this combination of intense hour long discussion and socializing afterwards can help strengthen those bonds and see the conversation and collaborations flourish online afterwards. this was very much part of our thinking – what should we be trying to do in a f2f session that we can’t already do well online.

So there you have it. At least as far as I am concerned. I won’t be organizing a separate WordCampEd event. I expect some will be disappointed – well, speak up, it’s early enough (this isn’t until June, right?) that we can change course or that you can still organize something if you feel so moved, and I think everyone involved so far would still be interested in hearing a plan and potentially collaborating. But this felt like a good plan to accomodate the vagaries of this year’s ETUG scheduling and travel issues while still meeting the goals of facilitating some good specific discussions on applying WPMU AND buildling local community. Hope to see you there! – SWL