Aug 2008A Hatley

All About RSS

Marlborough ICT PD – August 2008

A Hatley

Video…

An opening video of someone else explaining “RSS in Plain English”…

(3:44)

What is RSS…

RSS stands for - RSS (Rich Site Summary) RSS (Real Simple Syndication)

Other terms you may hear – Web Feed, feed, channel

URL: uniform resource locator – just a website address!

More New Terms

There are a few terms for how you receive the website content updates.

Feed Reader News Reader RSS Readers Feed Aggregators Search Aggregators

The Readers can be either web-based or desk-top based software. We will focus on web-based readers today.

The Benefit

RSS is a way to deliver regularly changing web content directly to you.

It means you can easily stay in tune with up-to-date information on topics you are interested in.

This will save you time as you don’t have to go out and find each individual site.

It also means you do not have to subscribe via email to newsletter updates, thus increasing your privacy.

The benefit of RSS is the aggregation of content from multiple web sources all in one place at your finger tips.

How Does it Work?

Many news-related sites, blogs and other online publishers syndicate their content as an RSS Feed to whoever wants it.

An RSS feed contains either a summary of content from an associated website or the full text.

What Do You Have to Do?

1. Find a feed reader that you enjoy.2. Subscribe to the RSS feeds of your

choice. 3. Open your feed reader page daily to

check the latest news all brought together for you on one easy page.

Web Based Readers

My Yahoo, Bloglines, and Google Reader are popular web-based feed readers.

Recognising RSS

Filename extension .rss, .xml Look for the RSS symbols on

websites

Subscribing…

You will subscribe to a feed by entering the feed's link (URL) into your feed reader or by clicking an RSS icon in a browser (ex: Internet Explorer) that initiates the subscription process.

Your feed reader will then check your subscribed feeds regularly for new content, and will bring any new content to you via your feed reader page.

RSS is most commonly found in blogs or news web sites, but it is becoming more common to see on any web site that is updated frequently.

Bloglines – Feed Reader

http://www.bloglines.com/ Create an account Log in Add subscriptions

Google Reader -

www.google.com Must create a google account Sign in > My Account

…More Find “Reader” Add subscriptions and manage

subscriptions

Google Reader – works like email essentially.

Folder list to the right can be organised by drag and drop.

Items can be starred as good articles.

Add subscriptions by copy and pasting the RSS URL into the “Add Subscription” box.

Discover to find lists of feeds based on topics….see next slide….

Search for feeds by keyword.

IGoogle

www.google.com This is a personalised ‘home page’ that

contains feeds of your choice as well as gadgets that appeal to you.

Mine is addictive – you should try it! You will need a google account Sign in You should see igoogle at the top of the

regular google search screen if you are signed in

• Customise by adding gadgets • Subscribe to feeds

RSS feeds come into Igoogle as well. You can also add ‘gadgets’ that suit your needs. All you need is a Google account to get started. Igoogle can read your Google Reader feeds, Gmail and any other feeds you find on the net.

Blogs

www.blogger.com You can use class blogs with RSS

feeds between each other Great way to keep an ‘eye’ on

students work just by checking your own blog!

To receive RSS feeds from a blog all you have to do it copy the URL of the blog itself into your subscriptions.

You can edit your blog to add content to the page. > Layout > Page Elements

Add a Gadget…

Add a gadget…blog list, subscription links, etc.

Delicious – Social Bookmarks

http://delicious.com/ Social book marking could be used in

the “virtual” classroom to get your students to look at pages you book mark.

Students would receive an RSS feed of your bookmarked pages and could check them as you update for a research assignment.

Once you have clicked onto subscribe you can copy this URL into your feed reader, and your students can as well.

Flickr - Picture Feeds

http://www.flickr.com/ Flickr creates RSS feeds of photo

albums Create a Flickr account Syndicate your feed to students or

peers (they subscribe to your feed)

Turning a Google Search into RSS

http://feedmysearch.com/ You can request your feed reader to

search Google using specific search terms.

This site will turn your search terms into an RSS feed that your feed reader will update when new website match your search terms.

This will find the top ranked sites for the search terms “Marlborough Girls College” so you could be first to know you are in the media!

Hover over the Subscribe button.

Then click on the RSS symbol in the bottom right corner.

This is the RSS feed from your search terms…copy the URL into your subscriptions.

Privacy Act…

You should be careful when posting student names, images of students, and student work on the World Wide Web.

It could be an idea to only include student names as acronyms or nic names. Any work if that comes from a student would use that particular acronym or nic name.

Written permission (to post pictures, etc.) from the student / parents would help as well.