RSS For Education

•What is RSS?•Ways RSS is being used.•Ways to use RSS in Education.

What is RSS?

What is RSS? RSS stands for Real Simple Syndication or Rich Site Summary Very simply, it is a web page with a .xml file type that can be

subscribed to and read by a newsreader(aggregator). The aggregator will find the new content and display it when it becomes available.

Newsreaders(sometimes called aggregators) are very easy to find and use. Stand Alone Applications Through a Web Browser

In essence, it is content that comes to you, instead of having to search for it. It will save you an infinite amount of time.

The Ways RSS is being used.

Ways RSS is being used:

Newsfeeds Blogs Wikis Podcasts

RSS

Newsfeeds Blogs Wikis Podcasts

RSS

Newsfeeds

News and other content waiting for you!

Getting Started with Newsfeeds

1. Decide upon a web-based aggregator or a desktop(stand alone) aggregator.

A few examples:

Web based: bloglines.com

Desktop: Vienna

Browser: Opera 9, Safari, Firefox Plug-in

This can be done in a few ways. Generally anytime you see these symbols,

it means the web site you are on has a newsfeed. Find the icon and copy the link location. Then go back to your newsreader and paste it in the appropriate place. If you want help finding newsfeeds, go to:Technorati.com or Feedster.com• Opera 9 and Safari make this VERY easy.

2. Start subscribing to feeds!

Blogs

Updated information from the people and topics you’re

interested in.

Syndicated Blogs

Many blogs are now offering syndicated material. Once you subscribe to the newsfeed, anytime the blog has a new entry, your newsreader will detect the new content and make it available to you.

Wikis

Be a part of actively creating content.

Syndicated Wikis

As with blogs, a syndicated Wiki would just be a standard Wiki, but anytime any of the content changed on the Wiki, all the subscribers would be notified.

Podcasts

Audio content on the go.

Audio/Video Content Awaits Podcasts and Video Podcasts(vodcasts) are

becoming increasingly more popular, much as blogs did about 3 years ago.

Basically, a podcast is an audio or video blog. It has limitless possibilities of content.

Go to itunes music store and subscribe for free. (You can also use other applications to subscribe to and download podcasts.)

Create your own Feeds!

It’s not hard!

You can be the source! As long as you have a website or a blog of your own, you can create

your own newsfeed. In reality you can also find websites that will enable you to create a feed.

Feeder: Excellent software to publish your own newsfeeds or podcasts.

Garageband: Probably the simplest way to create your own podcast.

Using Feedburner.com, you can turn any blog or feed address into a working feed. This is extremely easy!

FeedYes.com makes it VERY easy to create your own feed or to make a feed from any website.

U. of Mississippi has a great tutorial on adding an RSS feed to your website. (http://www.olemiss.edu/depts/research/publications/orspit/rss_howto/index.html)

Ways to use RSS for Education.

Major Time Saver!

Social Bookmarking Create bookmarks of internet sites and then syndicate

these findings. Great for groups researching a topic together or an

instructor that wants to share great websites they have found.

Others can subscribe to your bookmarks and receive them whenever the publisher adds a new bookmark.

Use furl.net or de.lic.io.us to set up social bookmarking. Using de.lic.io.us you can just subscribe to a bookmark

feed of any tag. Citeulike.org allows you to search academic papers and

then subscribe to feeds on academic topics.

Student Blogs

Students can keep their own blogs with their own rss feed.

Blogger.com, etc. Offer free services. Others can subscribe to the blog and keep up to

date with content. Comment on each others blogs Teachers can easily find individual student content

by subscribing to individual feeds or by combining all the student feeds into one class feed.

Classroom, School, or Community Newsfeeds

Classroom or School Blogs. Parents/Students will receive new content as it is made available.

Classroom calendars of events Assignments sent to your news reader. server.com/communityapps/discussionapp This is a

great place to set up a learning community. It will send out newsfeeds of discussion amongst a community of learners.

Syndicated Photos

Using a service such as Flickr, it is possible to syndicate photos.

As new photos are added, newsreaders will update content.

Subscribe to feeds of photos with certain tags, such as “yosemite”.

Auditory Learners Rejoice!

It is possible to transform a textual feed into audio using talkr.com or feed2podcast.com

A great way to reach learners with a variety of styles.

Post notes into a blog and then can receive the audio.

Create personalizedsearchable RSS feeds

Create an RSS feed based upon a any topic or even combinations of topics.

This is EXTREMELY COOL! Get up to the minute news on any topic as it becomes

available. Go to:

http://www.justinpfister.com/gnewsfeed.cfmOr just go to Yahoo, Google, MSN

Combine your feeds

Combine feeds to receive one feed. Go to: feedshake.com or rssmix.com Useful for a variety of purposes.

Syndicate your Calendar

Keep a calendar and have new events sent to your newsreader.

Set up a newsfeed that will let you know what events you have scheduled for that day.

Google Calendar, Trumba.com,

RSS Calendar

To Do Lists

Have your to do lists sent to you through a feed. Reminders to be more productive.

Remberthemilk.com or Tadalist.com

Resources/Links/References

RSS: A Quick Start Guide for Educators, Will Richardson, www.weblog-ed.com, 2005

RSS Ideas for Educators, Quentin D’Souza, http://www.teachinghacks.com

Data Harvesting: Using RSS for Education, Robin Bartoletti, http://ctln.net/Members/rbart/rss

Resources/Links/References

Other Websites: http://localendar.com/elsie http://www.learningcircuits.org/2004/may2004/0405_trends.htm http://www.faganfinder.com/search/rss.shtml http://www.basement.org/archives/2006/01/taking_rss_beyond_headlines_pa.html http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/help/3223484.stm http://blogcritics.org/archives/2006/03/05/165927.php http://www.infotoday.com/MMSchools/jan04/richardson.shtml http://www.feedburner.com/fb/a/home http://feedshake.com/ http://www.feedster.com/ http://www.googlealert.com/ http://www.justinpfister.com/gnewsfeed.cfm http://www.engadget.com/2004/11/23/how-to-broadcatching-using-rss-bittorrent-to-

automatically/ http://channels.lockergnome.com/rss/ http://www.furl.net/ http://searchenginewatch.com/sereport/article.php/2175271 http://w.moreover.com/categories/category_list_rss.html

Resources/Links/References http://www.netvibes.com/ http://www.nytimes.com/2005/08/03/technology/techspecial3/03ethan.html?

ex=1142053200&en=a31c7fe76481f642&ei=5070 http://onlinebusiness.about.com/od/siteenhancements/a/rssuses.htm http://www.pubsub.com/newsgroups.php http://www.site-reference.com/articles/Website-Development/Quick-and-Easy-Site-Content-with-

RSS-and-PHP.html http://www.reinventedsoftware.com/feeder/features.html http://allrss.com/rssfeeds.html http://www.rssmix.com/ http://www.rsscalendar.com/rss/ http://www.syndic8.com/ http://www.teachinghacks.com/ http://technorati.com/ http://www.techweb.com/article/showArticle.jhtml?articleId=57700173 http://technologysource.org/article/rss/ http://radio.xmlstoragesystem.com/rcsPublic/rssHotlist http://www.trumba.com/default.aspx http://www.olemiss.edu/depts/research/publications/orspit/rss_howto/index.html