Killer Combo

I just thought of a way to combine RSS feeds and WebCT and save time. As things stand now, if an instructor using WebCT wishes to post an announcement for her class to see, she either has to post the announcement to a textbox inside the WebCT course space (at least a ten or twelve click procedure), or send a standalone email message to the whole class (seven clicks).

Alternatively, the same instructor could use Thingamablog, an ftp-equipped server, and an embedded RSS feed to post the same announcement to several sections of the class at once (maybe four clicks).

Here's another idea: let a student be a "guest blogger" on a WebCT course resource page. Have him set his RSS feed to "full text" and post comments about coursework. Or, put students in teams and rotate feeds from group blogs. Then the class will have another reason to log in to the WebCT course space -- to check out new posts from the "bloging group of the week."

Or use suprglu to compile a whole class' RSS feeds into one and embed the compilation into a WebCT page.

The possible permutations are endless.