The notion of blogging as a means of connecting with others is quite a leap in thinking. It's like starting a conversation on your own and ending up with a room full of people all adding their thoughts and perspectives; with the added bonus that those other people involved in the conversation can be anywhere in the world (as long as they have an internet connection) and at anytime of the day. If I think too long about all that it makes my head hurt. Being in Sydney today means I can connect with people who are still in yesterday! Have we stepped into the Twilight Zone?
Once you have established that connection though, the decision is how you will maintain it. For many bloggers they may have one off visitors who simply leave a message and never return. Others may find they have a meeting of minds with people far away and so they want to follow up this connection and read the blog regularly. This is where RSS and aggregators (like Google Reader or Facebook) really come in handy. Really Simple Syndication is an amazing way to channel new posts on blogs that you enjoy and want to read regularly. There are many choices of how to do that but for the beginner, Google Reader is definitely quick and easy to set up and use. Visiting the conversations pages of the Teacher Challenge has given me lots of information about other ways to RSS and how to set up a single visit webpage that you can use as your homepage so that the blog posts come to you rather than you having to visit them individually.
There is much to learn about RSS feeds and what method works best for your needs and situation. The Teacher Challenge Activity for this has certainly had some interesting feedback as beginner bloggers who have never used aggregators before, find the new, time efficient streaming a significant improvement for their enjoyment of reading the blogs they wish to follow.
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