RSS Feeds and Your Cellphone

So in an effort to publish more, and to get into the blogging game full force, I have decided to incorporate RSS onto my blog using Feedburner. Now all people need to do is click the subscribe icon in the right column to get new posts sent directly to their newreader of choice, or they can simply sign up in the email box to have new content sent right to their inbox!

Not that I'm fantasizing about hordes of people reading my blog, but I guess I should know how to do this in case I have to teach people how to do it. And what a great tool for teachers! Utilizing a blog as a digital repository of class materials (PowerPoints, .pdf's, class notes, etc.), the RSS feed is a way to inform students when new material is online for them to look at. Of course, most high schoolers don't check their email, so the dilemna is to find a way to deliver the content right to where the students will actually see it: their phones.

So I did some research, and lo and behold I found Web-Alerts. Simple to use, all you need to do is enter the URL of the site you would like to follow (http://brianstumbaugh.net/blog/, for example) and Web-Alerts will look up the feed for the site. Once it finds it, all you need to do is enter your cell number and- BAM!- you get text message alerts right on your phone.

A similar service is Pingie, a very similar set up. Pingie is easier, and allows for a quicker application process, but the results are the same. Once you apply and set up a free account, you can direct any feeds you want to follow right to your phone. Very cool, and easy as an option for students. Imagine having all of them anxiously awaiting your next text...dizzy with the expectations of unbridled learning! It boggles the mind.

Oh, but be careful, normal text messaging rates apply, so unless you have unlimited texting, this could get expensive. And since a growing number of teens have smartphones that have free RSS reader apps, this might seem a bit unnecessary. But there are some out there who don't have the fancy do-hickeys, but they just about all have cell phones. Why not bring school to that world?