So don’t get me wrong…I LOVE Bloglines probably more than any other read/write Web tool out there. Frankly, I’m not sure everyone should be a blogger. But I am sure everyone should use an aggregator. Everyone. And to me, Bloglines is hands down the most convenient.

But a few months ago they added this new “Keep New” feature where if there is a post you want to get back to at some point you can click the box and it will stay in the list until you, theoretically at least, come back at a later time and unclick it. Problem is I’m having a little difficulty with the second half of that equation. So now, before I even start reading what’s come in just the EdBlogger part of my subscriptions, I have 124 messages that are “Keeping New,” just kinda waiting there for me to do something with. And it’s unnerving me to some extent, accentuating this feeling that I have that I’ll never know it or read it all.

What characterizes a “Keep New” post, you ask? (Like someone is really asking…) Well, usually it’s something I read when I might not have enough time to fully digest what it’s about and I think I might want to blog about it later, or it’s something I want to try out but it doesn’t especially look like a resource I could Furl. (Ironically, the oldest “Kept New” post I have is Lilia’s “Time in blogging: catching a moment to write” from September 27. Coincidence???) Regardless, I think I’m going to have to resolve NOT to keep things new, to figure out something to do with whatever piques my interest. But what?

On a side note, my aggregator reading has now totally evolved into something akin to throwing darts. I cannot get my little Bloglines notifier to say anything under 1,000 posts waiting to be read, and so I just go in a randomly click off a few of the bigger culprits just to get the number down. What I should do is just admit that, especially this time of year, there’s no way I can do 150 subscriptions justice. But who (or what) do I delete? Oh, the humanity!

On second thought, maybe some people shouldn’t have an aggregator either…

Here’s a pretty interesting article about using wikis as a learning tool. I like the icebreaker exercise that the authors use to get students familiar with the technology, and I think it can serve as a good model for the ways to introduce much of these new tools. The best way to really understand the power of personal publishing is to, well, publish personally, put yourself out there, talk about who you are and what you want from life.

And while we’re on the subject, I found another wiki-type site today at Planetmath.org where hundreds (thousands?) of left-brain types are building a site full of math resources.

PlanetMath is a virtual community which aims to help make mathematical knowledge more accessible. PlanetMath’s content is created collaboratively: the main feature is the mathematics encyclopedia with entries written and reviewed by members. The entries are contributed under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License (FDL) in order to preserve the rights of both the authors and readers in a sensible way.

I sent out an e-mail to my math department with the link and hopefully planting the idea that we could do the same here. I’m scheduled to meet with the Media Lit teacher tomorrow and start the wiki project in that class next week. Maybe the meme will spread…
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