Filtering out the noise

 

The Scream, Edvard Munch via Wellcome images

A common concern is how to cope with, let alone process,  the amount of information that can be received online.  [Try Googling "coping with information overload"]. So, I thought it might be useful to share some of the tools I use to try to manage that stream of information

I’m going to limit this post to three of my current favourites.  They have replaced others and will no doubt be replaced themselves in time, but for now this is my Top 3

No 1

iGoogle is a personalised homepage with the Google search box at the top and the main page populated with your choice of ‘gadgets’.  My iGoogle page shows my e-mails; RSS feeds; Twitter account, and BBC News Feed.  Whenever I switch on my computer {is it ever off?!}, I can have a quick overview of what has come in.

This video will hopefully give you some idea of how I use it, and how to set it up for yourself.

(I am experimenting with using videos for online instruction. I used Jing to make this video.  Screenr is another tool you could try.  I’m hoping that with more practice I will reduce the number of ‘erms’)

No 2

reader

Google Reader shows all the RSS feeds you have subscribed to coming in to an inbox, similar to your e-mail.  This video gives a good intro.  (Its not one of mine, so not one single ‘erm)

To subscribe to a feed, right click on the    and “copy link address”to your subscriptions in Google reader.

As I’m surfing the web I subscribe to a lot of blogs/websites.  If I then find that I’m getting too much irrelevant stuff coming into my ‘inbox’ I will unsubscribe to that feed, so it does take a bit of tweaking to make sure you are getting the right content.  A couple that I would recommend are:

Tom Barret’s Ed.tech blog: http://edte.ch/blog/

Doug Belshaw: http://dougbelshaw.com/blog/

No 3 A non-Google product! 

I used to use several different products to collate things from the web.  For instance, I was a great fan of Delicious for bookmarking websites, and I still use Youtube to collect educational and personal videos.  However, a newcomer on the block is Scoop.it!, which is now my tool of choice.  I have written about it in this blog post.

So that’s my top 3.  It will be interesting for me to come back to this in a few months time to see if they have changed.  In the meantime, if you use different tools that help you manage information, please let me know.  I’m always on the look out.

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