Saturday, November 29, 2008

Tag - You're It

A few days ago, Lee Kolbert at A GeekyMomma's blog started a meme. She made a Wordle out of her blog's RSS feed. I liked the idea, but adjusted it so that it picked up all my blog posts instead of just the RSS feed's seven items.

Finding Out You're Tagged

Today I was looking at Technorati reactions through my Google Reader feed. I found out that I was tagged for the meme by Kevin Jarrett at his Welcome to NCS-Tech blog.

When I first started blogging, the only way I would find out I was tagged for a meme was if I happened upon the post or the person who tagged m
e told me. Over time, I learned about Google Reader and setting up various searches to keep up with posts pointing to my work on the web.

Technorati can seem like a vanity item at first, but it has so many other uses. One of those uses is the Search field. I typed my blog URL njtechteacher.blogspot.com in the search box. It generates an RSS feed that can be included in Google Reader as a subscription.



This morning, I saw this in my reader:


My Wordle and the Meme's Rules
1. Create a Wordle from your blog's RSS feed.
2. Blog it and describe your reaction. Any surprises?
3. Tag others to do the same.
4. Be sure to link back here and to where you were first tagged.

I modified my RSS feed to temporarily include my last 200 posts instead of the usual seven. Since I only have about 175 posts, it includes every post I've written since starting NJ Tech Teacher Musings.



My Reactions
I'm not too surprised. My posts are more about what I do with students, projects that work and need rework, and a lot of reflection for future attempts at projects in the classroom. The students are at the heart of it all. I work with all types of software both purchased and open source from Microsoft Office to Open Office, Kid Pix to the Gimp, iMovie, GarageBand, Scratch, and many others. I want the students to learn how to give presentations that are interesting and effective. I want the students to be able to tell a story. I take a fair number of surveys to learn what the students think about our work.

Tag - You're It
I would like to tag the following people. As Kevin said in his post, there is no need to do this if you are not interested. I enjoy completing memes if I have the time. Full disclosure: I did this instead of creating the lesson plans for the week.

Vicky Sedwick
Jan Smith
Patti Harju
Michelle Russell
Bonnie Kaplan

Let the game continue...

8 comments:

  1. Sounds like fun. THanks for thinking of me Ann and your great comments about Photo Fridays.
    Here goes on my meme.
    Bonnie

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  2. I'm glad you're game for it. You have a lot of varied posts, it will be interesting to see the themes.

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  3. I'm so glad my meme could be a distraction from your lesson plans ;-) I love how your Wordle so prominently shouts "students." Thanks for participating! It's been very exciting to track the meme's path along the blogosphere. ~Lee

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  4. I would like to create the wordle with all of my blog posts, too, as opposed to just the last few. Would you mind sharing how you were able to do that? I also use blogger/blogspot.
    thanks :)

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  5. Thanks for the tag. I look forward to creating my Wordle...

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  6. @Lee I think you had a fun idea. I did finish my lesson plans later in the evening, it was a fun distraction putting together the blog post.

    @Andrea I put together a little tutorial showing how I did it (and then some). I hope that helps.

    @Patti I look forward to seeing how yours turns out!

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  7. I just saw I was tagged. I don't have many posts (just 3) but I will still do it. Thanks for the tag!

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  8. How do you get the Links to the Post to show up?

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