What's Up with RSS?

Have you ever wondered what people are talking about when they say 'RSS Feed'? Or, have you seen those little orange boxes on websites with the letters RSS and wondered who this RSS person was and why they keep leaving their initials everywhere? Well, here are some basics to help you get up to speed. The icon below is another common symbol for RSS feeds.

RSS feeds are a great way to for you and your students to stay up-to-date and informed with 21st Century skills. RSS typically stands for 'Real Simple Syndication'.
"RSS solves a problem for people who regularly use the web. It allows you to easily stay informed by retrieving the latest content from the sites you are interested in. You save time by not needing to visit each site individually. You ensure your privacy, by not needing to join each site's email newsletter. The number of sites offering RSS feeds is growing rapidly and includes big names like Yahoo News. 

What do I need to do to read an RSS Feed?

Feed Reader or News Aggregator software allow you to grab the RSS feeds from various sites and display them for you to read and use."(http://www.whatisrss.com/)

 

There are several options out there to choose from for feed readers and/or aggregators such as Page Flakes and Google Reader.

"Once you have your Feed Reader, it is a matter of finding sites that syndicate content and adding their RSS feed to the list of feeds your Feed Reader checks. Many sites display a small icon with the acronyms RSS, XML, or RDF to let you know a feed is available." (http://www.whatisrss.com/)

 

As mentioned above, Pageflakes is a great site to view your RSS feeds and to use in education. One reason I like Pageflakes is that you can make your page public and share it with others. So, the next time you teach a unit on habitats you could set up a page flake to bring in articles from sites that you choose all to one place. You can share the Pageflake link with your students so they have the most recent information and content to read and it will all be about the topic you are covering!

http://www.pageflakes.com/