Using RSS Feeds to Keep Up to Date on Cuba

Using RSS Feeds, students have the opportunity to track changes in the political reign of a country throughout the marking period, semester and year, in this, news on Cuba*. This will lead to a better understanding of the country, discussions on comparisons and contrasts between countries in Latin America and Spain, as well as using the RSS Feeds to create a final project.

There are many newspaper websites available to students that give up to date information about Cuba and it's political stability, or rather, instability, depending on how you look at it. There are also many blogs available, which offer a real perspective on native views (uncensored) to what is happening in Cuba at the moment. Blog for Cuba is a good starting point for students searching for political information that is uncensored by the government.

The best news website that was found is Granma, a Cuban newspaper based in Habana, the capital of Cuba. They offer good information on the politics of Cuba, as well.

The final project will focus on creating a presentation of their findings throughout the year, which means they will have to keep track of the articles throughout the year to use them as a reference to be able to showcase their knowledge gained from this exciting adventure.

*Note: Because BBCMundo.com can not be specifically searched for Cuba, students will gain an understanding of how to use RSS Feeds and search for topics using titles of articles of interest. This will provide more ample opportunity for learning.




Using RSS Feeds in my Future Classroom

When thinking about how I could use RSS Feeds in my future teaching, there were so many opportunities that came to mind!

From a teacher standpoint: I am able to post items on the blog for my students to keep up to date with such as homework assignments in case a student is absent, so they don't always have to come to me and ask me what is due; they can just get the update themselves (I won't have to hold their hand!) In the same manner, I can post these homework assignments for the parents to get the update if they are subscribed to my RSS Feed and see what is due in the future, so they have an idea of what their students should be working on. This is ideal so the parents can stay up to date and happy, and won't be contacting me to make sure their student isn't lying to them every day because they don't have any homework (so the student says!)

Also, I am able to professionally keep up to date with other teachers from around the world through other's blogs and professional websites and get ideas for classroom activities as well as express my opinions on a variety of topics such as classroom management, discipline, teaching methods, etc. It allows me to connect to certain areas of websites that I'm interested in, instead of having to connect to the entire blog I may be able to just be a part of certain threads that I am interested in.

From a student standpoint: The students are able to use RSS Feeds to their advantage when doing research projects and homework, as they can search for items of interest and keep up to date with information at the click of a button. Also, as I said before, the students can subscribe to my blog to get updates, as well as other students blogs or the school blog to make sure they stay up to date with class work, get necessary information about important dates in the future, and get all the juicy news that I'm sending out that they'll want to be the first to know about!

I'm also very excited to say that students are able to subscribe to Spanish speakers blogs using RSS Feeds and anytime they are interested in posting something back to them they can do so. This may be considered extra credit in my classroom, or just highly looked upon in it.

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