Giving NetVibes a Whirl

Two recent posts have led me in the direction of giving NetVibes a whirl in my classroom this year.  Thanks goes out to Clarence Fisher’s Constructing a Textbook and Jeff Utecht’s Netvibes in the Classroom.  I had considered setting up feeds for my classroom last year, but just never got around to it.  So this year, those two posts have been the impetus for me spending the past couple of days looking for and adding feeds to a Netvibes page for my team.

http://www.netvibes.com/sunfishscience

The link above takes you to what I currently have set up.  Although the URL implies it is solely for science, there are social studies feeds as well.  During the year, our four science topics are:

• Weather/Atmosphere
• Human Body Systems
• Genetics
• Physics: Forces and Motion

The science feeds I’ve selected are rather general for the most part. The feeds I have selected are:

• The Weather Channel Blog
• Flickr recent photos tagged clouds
• CNN Science
• National Geographic Science
• BBC Science and Environment
• New Scientist Environment
• MSNBC Weather
• Afrigadget

During the year, as we move to other topics I hope to update my feeds to include information from other areas.  Another item I would like to include is a science podcast of some sortthat is appropriate and relevant for middle school students.  Afrigadget is included largely because of trying to make connections between the science and social studies curricular goals, which cover:

• Africa
• Asia
• Australia

My social studies teacher starts the year with Africa.  Therefore, the social studies feeds I have loaded so far are related to Africa and include two BBC podcasts:

• BBC Africa Today podcast
• BBC This Week in Africa podcast
• MSNBC Africa
• BBC Africa
• Voice of America Africa

In addition, I will be updating the General tab with the weather from a current country of study in social studies.  That way students can compare the local weather with the weather in different regions of Africa, Asia, and Australia.

Here’s where I need some help.  Are there other news/blog feeds or podcasts that you would recommend for middle school students studying the topics listed above?  I would love to have input from some of you all so that we can find the best information available.  I haven’t even begun to tackle some of the future topics for either class.  I’m also looking for a great site that posts daily images.  I’m considering the Boston Globe’s Big Picture despite the issue of the images not coming through the RSS feed that Clarence mentions in his post.

Any and all suggestions would be appreciated!