Trends and Issues in Extension

For the past six months at OSU Extension we’ve been planning to develop a website to aggregate audio and video archieves of speeches, discussions, etc. based on the Knowledge Economy. Now I find a great model to review. The University Channel does all of the above. Focusing on public and international affairs, the site allows visitors to stream video, audio or download podcasts via iTunes. They even have a companion blog set up. RSS feeds are available. At iTunes, I was only able to find one untitled podcast. Hopefully they will get this updated.

This is an excellent example of where I think Extension needs to be heading. Think of all of the presentations, demonstrations, training, etc. that we could capture and share. I’ve talked before about place and time shifting – the ability of the consumer to better control when and where they access media. The Univeristy Channel is an excellent example.

JOHO the Blog has a cool post linking to this interesting look at RSS feeds on Pito’s Blog. Pito has done some searching on how academicians and scientists are using RSS feeds to stay connected to information. Very interesting. A neat tool to keep in touch with what’s happening without plowing through a bunch of sites on a daily basis. Several examples are featured, including Science Magazine online. See especially the link to RSS feeds for online periodicals at the University of Saskatchewan.

You can use the RSS feeds at the right side of this blog to keep up on changes in Trends and Issues in Extension. Want more information on how to use RSS feeds as a tool? See the post below. Hint: if you want to easily put RSS feeds on your bookmark toolbar, consider using Firefox as a browser. If you’re using Firefox, you can add this feed to your bookmarks or bookmark toolbar by clicking on the little oranage box with white stripes in the bottom right hand side of the screen.

Want to know how to use RSS feeds? As I noted in an earlier post, it is a skill that just about every educator should understand how to use. RSS feeds allow you to be notified when content changes on a website or blog. This link from the University of Saskatchewan library (found via Joho- see above post) has a good primer. Check it out and learn how to use RSS feeds.

Implications for Extension Professionals: RSS feeds are a way to keep in touch with changes at favorite sites without needing to actually go the site. Even better, you can keep up with sites that change less frequently without having to go to the site. The post above gives examples of how other academicians are using RSS feeds. Do you have RSS feeds for your site? They are pretty much standard on any modern website.

Want to find old websites? Think they’ve dissappeared forever? You might want to look at the Wayback Machine and see previous versions of your website. Or your favorite website. Or your less than favorite website. Designed for historical reasons, Ken Leebow found the site via the Wall Street Journal. It seems that lawyers are key users of the Wayback Machine. Something to ponder as you flame someone on a blog….

Here is the permalink to Ken’s post. Extension Professionals and researchers searching for historical sites may want to check it out.