DE Oracle @ UMUC

RSS Feeds: Two Birds, One Information-Soaked Stone - Part I

Sharon Huston

Instructional Support Specialist

Center for Support of Instruction

Published: July-August 2009

Category: » Online-pedagogy » Teaching-tools

The world is changing almost as fast as my DSL connection. Maybe faster. New ideas and information hit our radar every day. This glut of information shapes our professional philosophies, our toolsets, our goals, and even our daily to-do lists. We are all constantly moving on to the next thing.  RSS feeds are a great tool we can use to gather and manage information to further our careers.

RSS feeds can also help students. One of the most valuable professional skills—the ability to gather, analyze, and use new information—is surprisingly hard to teach. It is always difficult to make our students realize that there is more to our professions than a textbook can contain. And it is even harder to move them from this simple realization to true information-junkie status where they routinely seek out and evaluate information on their own. Using RSS feeds in the classroom can help convert students from passive grazers to active information carnivores.

This article, the first of a two-part series, will discuss what an RSS feed is and how you can use it to improve your own information-gathering capabilities. The second article will examine the technical and pedagogical uses of RSS feeds within the classroom. 

What is an RSS Feed?

RSS ("really simple syndication") is a technology that Web sites use to deliver information to a reader. A Web site can have one or more "feeds," or collections of articles. CNN.com, for example, has feeds on U.S. news, technology, and entertainment. New articles published by the Web site are automatically added to the feed.

Your goal, as an information junkie, is to consume (read) different feeds on topics you find important. Feeds are read using an RSS reader (also known as an aggregator), a tool that allows you to access several different RSS feeds from a single place. 

So Why is this Cool? 

My profession, Web design, was one of the first to use the Internet as the primary communications medium. To get a balanced view of this chaotic landscape, Web designers had to visit different sites on a regular basis. It could be confusing (Have I visited adobe.com this month?) and sometimes exasperating (What do you mean, this site doesn't exist any more?). In 1996, the process became complicated enough that I developed a perpetual calendar to help me remember to visit Site A on Mondays and Site B on alternate Fridays.

When RSS entered the picture, I could add feeds from all these different sites to an RSS reader. After that, all I had to do to stay current was open the reader and start reading. RSS simplified my life by allowing me to do away with my complicated calendar and save my poor carpal-ridden fingers some typing and clicking.

Today there are many other information tools on the Web, but the ability of RSS to help me stay on top of trends across my entire discipline keeps it king of my info inbox.

Getting Started with Google Reader

There are several RSS readers available on the Web, but Google Reader is popular due to its price (free!), rich feature set, and simplicity. The Google Reader tutorial demonstrates how to set up and use the reader.

Around the Corner . . .

In this article we discussed what RSS feeds are and how you can use Google Reader to consume feeds. The next article in this series will focus on using RSS feeds with your classes.