PAGING BACK three years, we ask the question, "What is RSS?" RSS, short for Really Simple Syndication, lets you receive instant information updates. With RSS webfeeds you are in control — you decide what you want to read and when you want to read it. A simple news reader makes this possible. You can make the readers work with your email clients or on your mobile phone. It's really easy to do.

WE VISIT BUTLER GALLERY routinely with busloads of third level students from Tipperary Institute and this month it's to see the journals of Tony O'Malley. His work is all over Ireland at the moment. Besides being on display in the Butler, a major retrospecitve hangs in the Irish Museum of Modern Art--his third exhibition there in just over a decade. HE hangs in Dublin's Graphic Studio Gallery until 12 November and Taylor Galleries hosts an exhibition of gouaches, works on paper and oil paintings from 11 November.

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AT TIPPERARY INSTITUTE we help revise items in wikipedia and World66 because both of these editable communities offer a good experience with social software. Besides, both sites have developed a credible presence while proving the merit of collective publishing.

World66 will pay you to travel. All you have to do is help World66.com update their guidebooks by writing while traveling. They have ten travel grants waiting for travelers with a plan a good writing skills.

LONG-TIME BLOGGERS have an assortment of reasons to explain why they write online. I do it because good writing inspires. It feels like art. One of the reasons for maintaining a classroom blog is that it offers a forum to practise writing. In the newspaper industry, where training is woefully underfunded, sharing the lessons of great reporting and writing remains one of the best ways to learn the craft. It's the spirit behind the "Best Newspaper Writing" series, The Providence Journal's "Power of Words" site, Lee Enterprises' "Writing Matters," Bob Baker's "NewsThinking" and "No Train No Gain," home base for newspaper training editors and coaches. All of these sites deserve frequent visits by those beginning to learn Media Writing.

via Poynter.

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FLICKR -- Next academic term is Flickr's time to enter the Media Writing classroom in Tipperary Institute, as a product description technology. The tasking involves progressively deeper involvement with the photo-sharing technology, starting with an abstract description of what the web service does, a detailed description of the Flickr API, and adding notes to Flickr photos.

We have collected photos of multimedia developers at work and will have multimedia students annotate images with relevant information to identify the kinds of apparel people wear, products sitting on desks, and articles in offices. This exercise has a practical purpose--it is designed to develop an awareness of product placement. When seeking sponsorship, promoters need to know how to leverage product placement. Wired explains why:

THE ARTISTS WAY -- Julia Cameron specifies three "Basic Tools" that she uses to improve creative writing. We are using elements of each step in the Media Writing course in Tipperary Institute.

TIPPINST -- We have added Poynter's "50 Writing Tools" to the reading list of our Media Writing course in Tipperary Institute. They're also strongly recommended for writers of Irishblogs.

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DERVALA -- Here's a great tip from a great essayist: "Philip Lopate’s anthology, The Art of the Personal Essay. This is desert island stuff: 75 essays, from Seneca to Richard Rodriguez. It stops just in time, too, before this last decade’s boom in pity-me memoir and precocious autobiography".

CLONMEL -- We have started thinking about a meteorological station for Tipperary Institute in Clonmel, County Tipperary, Ireland. If we get it up and running by September, we will join the citizen metereological movement spawned by WeatherBug. It's a way of blending citizen journalism with weather reporting. Our ace card: we have very presentable reporters who are well-able to make 30-second mobisodes out of the weather reports.