Introduction

• web browsers
• search engines
• chat rooms
• FTP
• images & animation
• regular video & audio
• streaming video & audio
• electronic whiteboards
• MUD's & MOO's
• videoconferencing
• web authoring tools
• push technologies
• site capturing
• intranets

References

Push Technologies

Modern computer networks allow content providers to deliver content to users without immediate actions being taken by the user. Such content is delivered using push technologies as opposed to pull technologies. If the user immediately initiates the content deliver, then it is pulled form the Internet, if the user does not taken an immediate action, then it is pushed form the Internet. The differences are demonstrated in the traditional visit a web in which the visitor follows links to an audio file which he or she clicks to download versus an audio file that is downloaded because the visitor has subscribed to a syndicated feed, so that whenever the podcast is updated (and the subscriber's computer is connected to the Internet) the file is downloaded.

For educators, push technologies have a use in delivering information to certain audiences. For example, on an Intranet the office personnel could publish daily announcements and attendance lists to a blog; by configuring that blog to be syndicated and by configuring a application called an aggregator on classroom computers to subscribe to that syndication (Pilgrim, 2002) the contents of the blog could be delivered to classroom computers over the network. In addition, syndication could be used to deliver homework assignments and related announcements to family computers, although that does raise questions about the digital divide and putting students whose families who do not have Internet access at a disadvantage.

Subscribe to a pushed technology such as a syndicated blog or podcast (or other media published to the web on a regular basis) requires both the server be configured to allow pushing and that user's computers be configured to receive the pushed technology. Educators who push content on to the web will probably collaborate with a network administrator, and schools that push technology should plan to support (or at least recommend) aggregators and similar clients.

Resources for push technologies:

• FeedReader (n.d.) is an aggregator for Windows available under open source licensing.
• There are a number of other aggregators available; for example see the list at RSS Reader Software (NotePage, Inc. 2004-2006).