The Incredible Power of RSS Feeds Norma Smith Instructional Technology ESC Region XI

Understanding RSS Feeds RSS stands for Rich Site Summary or Real Simple Syndication Sites generate a behind-the-scenes code in a language similar to HTML called XML. ◦ This code, usually referred to as a "feed" (as in "news feed,") makes RSS possible for readers to "subscribe" to the content that is created on a particular site so they no longer have to visit the site itself to get new information. The content comes to you instead of you going to get it, Hence “Real Simple Syndication

What Kind of Content? Usually, content that is updated regularly such as: ◦ Newspapers ◦ Journals/ Magazines ◦ Blogs ◦ Social Networking Sites ◦ Picture Sites ◦ Movies ◦ Others

Why Go Get Content? The amount of information is overwhelming. Knowledge and information used to be scarce...that's what our education system was built upon. ◦ No more (MIT)(MIT) knowledge used to be hard or unchanging...but these days, knowledge is soft ◦ (Wikipedia) (Wikipedia)

How do we cope with this information? How do we structure what we read and view? How do we help our students structure their reading and research? How do we model new literacy?

Why Learn and Use Feeds? Amy Gehran (Contentious) writes:Contentious The most effective, lasting way to adapt your online-media mindset, habits, and priorities is to actually use these skills — not just know about them in a theoretical sense…experience itself — the “doing” — is what opens people’s minds enough that they make significant changes in how they use media to inform and engage with others... the highly interconnected, engaged, conversational nature of today’s online media is a matter of experience

RSS Aggregators

Understand News Aggregators The aggregator (software) checks the feeds you subscribe to, usually every hour, collects all the new content from those sites you are subscribed to and… Then, when you’re ready,you open up it up to read the individual stories, file them for later use, click through to the site itself, or delete them if they’re not relevant. In other words, you check one site instead of 30…not a bad tradeoff for a typically harried teacher.

Kinds of RSS Aggregators Desktop – IE7 Online – ◦ Google Reader ◦ Yahoo Mail ◦ Bloglines programs

Using IE7 Local Reader Feeds Settings – Internet Options, Contents To Read: ◦ Click Favorites Center Star ◦ Click Feeds ◦ Select To manage Feeds ◦ Drag to folders ◦ Right Click to create or delete Folders

To Add Feeds IE 7 Feeds are dynamic Easiest example ◦ Go to sportsillustrated.comsportsillustrated.com ◦ Tool Bar Orange Icon lights up ◦ Click ◦ Click “subscribe to this feed” ◦ Organize Easy example: ◦ Go to ◦ Click on Feeds icon on the page ◦ Scroll down and copy/paste the URL for the feed in the toolbar ◦ Click “subscribe to this feed” Practice on “interesting feeds”

If No Icon, Look for…. subscribe syndicate feed rss xml atom

Finding Feeds Use a Search engine and look around ◦ Use a Blog search engine ◦ ◦ To find news, ◦ Google

Cool Feeds to Explore Will Richardson Weather via RSS : Word of the day via RSS: eBay via RSS:

An Online Aggregator Google Reader Go to View Mine Log in or get an account Explore ◦ Read feeds ◦ Delete what you don’t want ◦ Look under “Add subscriptions”, “Browse” add some you want ◦ Click “Add subscriptions” and let google reader search for some feeds

Whoop-te-doos ◦ Starred items ◦ Shared items ◦ Trends

Set up Folders for your Selected Areas Folders are synonymous with Tags Click on “manage subscriptions” Click on drop down box to put subscription in a folder/tag To add a new folder/tag, when you subscribe, type in the name of the tag To delete a tag, select, click delete

More Cool Feeds Norma Smith EdTech Will Richardson ◦ EdTech Miguel Guhlin ◦ EdTech eschool News ◦ Interesting site ◦

Some More Sample Feeds Finance: Both Google Finance and Yahoo! Finance let you get finance news updates for specific companies and stocks. To receive stock quotes (only for some stocks), use NASDAQ's feeds.Google FinanceYahoo! FinanceNASDAQ's Weather: The Weather Channel, WeatherBug, NOAA's National Weather Service.The Weather ChannelWeatherBugNOAA's National Weather Service Classifieds: craigslist and Oodle.com offer feeds for all of their listings. Just look for the orange "RSS" link at the bottom of any results page. Similarly, eBay.craigslistOodle.comeBay Package tracking: To track packages that have been sent by UPS, FedEx, USPS or DHL/Airborne, use isnoop.net's universal package tracking or simpletracking.com.isnoop.net's universal package trackingsimpletracking.com Social networking: Facebook offers feeds for many of its features; notifications, status updates, and friends' posted items in Reader. Twitter fans can get RSS feeds for many of its pages.FacebookTwitterget RSS feeds Shopping: Amazon has feeds for the latest popular products as well as wish lists (look for the orange feed icon). Many other shopping web sites offer feeds, including Yahoo! Shopping, MSN Shopping, and NexTag.the latest popular productsYahoo! ShoppingMSN ShoppingNexTag Saved searches: Google Blog Search, Google News and most Yahoo! sites (among others) let you subscribe to search results as feeds. This way, if you want to monitor a topic, you don't have to keep running searches over and over again.Google Blog SearchGoogle Newsmost Yahoo! sites

Manage Subscriptions Select all or none Place subsriptions in folders/tags Can be in more than one for organization Can delete subscriptions – See Trends

Demo Monitor Student Blogs Every student has a blog with RSS feed Set up a folder and subscribe Know when additions are made Same with web pages Subscribe to all ESC XI IT blogs

Demo Students Monitor Teacher Blog Teacher has a blog Students each subscribe with an online aggregator Students know when something new is up

Student Research with RSS New Searches ◦ Googlealerts.com/  Get an account  Up to 3 alerts  Feed settings  User settings

Design Your own Personal Curriculum List three areas that you want to be knowledgeable and current in (hobbies or interests) Ex. ◦ News ◦ Weather ◦ Sports ◦ Cross Stitching ◦ Professional

On Google Reader Create these three folders Search to find feeds using ◦ Google +RSS ◦ Technorati ◦ ** ** ◦ GoogleAlerts ◦ other Start reading regularly

RSS Negatives V Positives Amateur Researchers Poor tagging Something else to manage Dubious sites No spam Digital Native Friendly Free Simple to Use Easy to share Accessible anywhere Builds and Builds