As a member of the MacLearning community, you can create simple polls to gather opinions from fellow members.

Here's how:

First, log in to MacLearning.org (or sign up if you haven't already).

Next, click the "My Apps" drop down menu, and select "Blogs":

On the screen that loads, click the "Create New Poll" link:

Enter your poll title, description and options. You can change the privacy settings to limit who can view and respond to your poll.

Once you click the "Create Poll" button, you'll be taken to your "My Polls" page, where you are presented a list of your polls. From this screen, you can edit, close and delete your poll(s):

Your new poll will be announced in the recent activity feed, will be included in a "Poll" tab on your profile, and will appear on the site-wide "Polls" page, assuming you made your poll public.

Profiles play an important role here on MacLearning.org. They are the primary mechanism for introducing us to one another. Many of the key elements in profiles are linked to provide quick lists of folks with commonalities. For example, adding your education history will provide links on your profile to other community members who attended the same schools.

Simply put, in order to maximize your profile, you should include as much information as you're comfortable going public with!

So, add your photo, current employer and position, and a biography. And links to your other social network profiles.

Here's how:

First, create your account on MacLearning.org and then log in.

Next, click the disclosure triangle next to the "Profile" menu, and select "Edit Profile Information":

Then, you add information to each of the tabs as shown below by clicking on them:

RSS (Really Simple Syndication) is a powerful technology. It provides a mechanism to publish frequently updated content — like you see here on the MacLearning Community — in a standardized format.

Why might you care?

Two reasons. MacLearning.org publishes RSS feeds for every activity on our site, for every user. These feeds can then be used by any number of cool technologies, ranging from Apple's easy-to-build desktop widgets (ala Dashcode), to robust iPhone apps via XCode, or a virtually unlimited number of web widgets, or inclusion into your profile pages on other social networks.

By clicking on the RSS icon at the bottom of any page, you can access site-wide feeds aggregated around functions (like blogs or polls), or search for individual members to access their feeds. Individual feeds are also available on each person's profile. Additionally, the "Feeds" link in the menu above allows you to view relevant news stories from other web sites from around the world.

With RSS, we can reach out and extend the sharing of our knowledge beyond the boundaries of this community.

This is the first of many site updates that will keep you abreast of changes being made to our new online community.

The biggest change you'll notice immediately is our new design. Fresh and bright.

New Features:

Twitter: Follow MacLearning.org on twitter (maclearning)

Blogs: All MacLearning community members can now create blog posts, just like this one. Our intent here is to give you an opportunity to enlighten the rest of the community with your knowledge!

Albums: Share images with the community by creating an album and uploading photos. Albums can be marked public or private. Private albums are a great place to store the screen shots and other image content that you'll use in your blogs!

Podcasts: Click the iTunes Podcast button at the bottom of the page to subscribe to our growing library of podcasts.

Feeds: We're aggregating a growing number of RSS feeds related to technology in education. You can share RSS feeds on your profile as well!