You’ve probably heard of RSS or Atom: they are technologies for delivering web content to you. A feed reader is a bit of software (either online or on your computer) that lets you see and organise that content.

I’m not going to try and explain any more about what RSS and Atom are, because it will quickly become confusing (if it isn’t already). What I am going to do is try and explain what a feed reader does, through the following fishy story…

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Once upon a time there was a vast lake, dense with fish. There were millions of them – of many different species, shapes, colours and sizes – and thousands of new fish appeared every minute.

Each day huge numbers of people would dive into the lake to look at the fish. But many only wanted to see certain kinds: people interested in blue fish only wanted to see blue fish; people interested in red fish with a fin missing only wanted to see those; and so on.

Unfortunately there were just too many fish. People were missing the fish they wanted to see, and the fish themselves were not getting the attention they deserved.

Then one day a group of clever folk invented a special kind of diving goggles. These goggles could be set to display only those fish which met certain criteria. So people who only wanted to see blue fish could now do so with little trouble.

And because the goggles knew which fish the user liked, they could let them know of other fish that they might find interesting.

On top of that, the user could fine-tune the goggles to display exactly the fish they wanted to see (for example they could choose not to see Bob Bigfin, who was an annoying blue fish). They could also set the goggles to automatically tell their friends know which fish they liked.

Of course, lots of people thought this was a great idea and started manufacturing their own goggles. Some gave theirs away free of charge, and some sold theirs with extra features.

And so everyone was able to find what they were looking for in the vast lake, and discover new fish based on what they already liked.
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And so it is with your feed reader: you can filter the web for what interests you. The difference is that don’t have to swim around the lake: you see the results all in one place, without having to go back to a website or search engine.

All you need to do is give the feed reader the address for the feed, be it RSS or Atom (you may be given a number of options for different versions of both: don’t worry too much about which to choose, it won’t make much difference). The feed reader then does the rest for you:  it looks online and displays anything new almost as soon as it’s published.

[Originally blogged on citizensheep.com. Thanks to Julia Gilbert for suggesting additional material.]

These internet applications,widgets,gizmos that we’ll have at the heart of our delivery also seem to playing a large role in managing the project too. We are communicating project updates using Twitter, we’re using Google Apps to manage everything from meetings and ‘to do’ lists, and we’re planning on using similar stuff to record all our information / evidence relating to the project.

I’m wondering somewhere along the line, when we won’t be able to rely on stuff from the ‘net.

I met with Sue Barton at OCN in Stoke last Friday to discuss the project and how OCN fits into the whole set up. Again, the project got the thumbs up from Sue and we found ourselves agreeing on many things specifically around the whole Adult Education / IT / Learning areas. Initially, I was keen to explore the potential of new courses / units based on our Web2.0 platform but found myself having a “a-ha!” moment when Sue suggested utilising the existing portfolio. Having looked at the unit requirements and outcomes I am more than confident that we can use their framework to deliver recognised and relevant qualifications. I am still keen to explore the development of a new course(s) but at this stage of the project, I think the OCN route seems feasible.

First thoughts are that the project aims to deliver the NOCN Entry Level Award for Progression (Entry 3). This qualification has a certain flexibility in it’s delivery options and can easily map the projects aims / issues such as engagement, worklessness and confidence. “These quals develop the skills and knowledge that will enable people to progress to further / higher education or employment” (OCN). Without going into too much detail, each participant would undertake a series of sessions totalling approx 30 hours. In these sessions, they would cover areas such as personal learning programmes, job seach skills, interview techniques, internet & email usage (There are many existing units to choose from and as a project, we need to decide which will be most suitable) but with our project twist of everything delivered using social media / web2.0 applications, including all the evidencing and reporting plus anything else we can think to chuck in to the mix.

So while we have that task to work through, we also need the project to become a registered OCN centre. So apart from the usual form filling stuff, this is actually taking us somewhat down the route of a real structure for the project..marvelous! These things obviously don’t happen for free, but we built in the centre recognition costs into our project startup bid through UNLTD, which we’re still awaiting news on.

An audio interview via BBC with Sir Tim Berners-Lee who pretty much invented the World Wide Web. He talks about the ‘semantic web’ which in simple terms is kinda like all the information and data available online being available in one language, so it can be shared by everyone. Some of today’s online stuff is starting to hint at this progression and our project by default will keep track of these developments. It’s these developments that our project will use as a platform to deliver on.