New Teacher – New Strategy #3: RSS – From Weidig

In this post, I will be looking at RSS the power and potential of Real Simple Syndication. Really Simple Syndication (RSS) is a tremendous way to simplify your processes in searching and gathering information. Overall, RSS keeps you from having to hunt for information… especially from sites that you frequent often to gather information. This saves time and energy and focuses your attention on evaluating information and choosing whether to delve further into researching a specific topic or simply moving on to other more relevant information and activities.

With RSS you setup a aggregator called a “reader” through which you gather “feeds”. Once a “feed” is setup, information comes to you as opposed to you hunting for it. My choice of RSS Reader is Google Reader. Aside from being one of the free Google tools, there are many 3rd party “readers” that can connect to the feeds within Google Reader that allow you to extend the capabilities of Google Reader as well as view information in the way you prefer. Here is a quick video by Lee Lefever that provides a great overview of explaining RSS and how to setup an RSS Reader:

RSS in Plain English – by Lee Lefever

Once you setup your RSS aggregator, and begin to add feeds, news stories from around the world as well as information from educational and instructional blogs will begin to flow into the Reader. Additionally, most magazine type services (and all search engines) have RSS feeds embeded into their sites that you can tap into. This type is resource allows you to become a “grazer” and evaluator of information as opposed to a hunter of information.

Educational uses.

First and foremost, leveraging RSS provides another way to find, gather, and catalog tremendous amounts of resources and information. It can be used to extend a personal learning network (PLN) as well as augment the process of “giving back” to your PLN by making it easy to share the resources you find. Because you can add feeds about any subject or topic your reader provides an opportunity to create a dynamic learning environment. There is the ability to create a permanent grouping of feeds around instructional methodologies and classroom practices, while having more flexible groupings setup around specific topics, ideas, and even units or lessons for which you are preparing.

Classroom Ideas

Think about how you have students research the internet right now… Typically, a teacher schedules 3 days in a computer lab all devoted to “research.” (Or two days of research and one for pulling it all together) Students do a lot of things with that time… some of it is even researching their topics, however, there is also a great deal of just gathering information without any true evaluation of the source or even the material they find. Too often students take the path of least resistance and only click through the couple of Google links (before abandoning that search or declaring “there is not information on this topic…”. Then they cut and paste this information into a PowerPoint or some other tool. Finally they read from the screen along with the rest of the class when presenting… Sound familiar?

How different could it be if this was how the research went like this? Two weeks before you are set to begin an inquiry based project you schedule one (1) (<- see that ONE) day in the lab for research. The students would have had an RSS Aggregator set up in the beginning of the year or you take the first five minutes of class for them to register with your favorite. Now you have the students begin researching current relevant topics through news agencies and blogs (you can even use diigo, delicious and technorati as search vehicles) by doing google searches and ONLY grabbing the RSS feed for the topic or going to specific sites of some interest and grabbing the RSS feed. Now all of the information that is returned is NOT REVIEWED AT THIS POINT but, put into the RSS Aggregator to be allowed to continue to collect for the next two weeks. Perhaps you have them work a bit to create folders to categorize some of the information on the fly like:

• Background information / Google search RSS
• Relevant News Stories
• Blogs and other first person accounts
• Misc.

Then when the hour is over, you all go back to your regularly scheduled classes for the next two weeks. However, during this time the RSS Reader is chugging away gathering more and more information related to the topic of the students choice. When it comes time for the inquiry based project to begin, you bring the students back to the lab, and they now begin to use and develop their skills at “grazing” information, evaluating the relevance of the information in their reader, the credentials of the source of the information, digesting the information and what type of impact it would have on their project. They would also begin the process of evaluating possible presentation vehicles. These vehicles will become the tools for presenting this information so their peers, parents, and teachers best understand and be impacted by the message they are working to get across. How much different of a learning experience would that be for your students?

Other Thoughts

On an aside while you can do group work with RSS, through Google Reader, with each student having their own account account they can leverage RSS in ways more personal to them. What about setting up a class reader or feeds? Unit feeds? Share some of your personal feeds on a class website? or even set up your own RSS feed of a class blog or Ning so parents could subscribe to what you are doing in class.  What are your thoughts other ways to embrace RSS for your personal learning environment as well as the advancement of student learning and achievement.

RSS Aggregator Options

There are a number of RSS Aggregators (Readers) out there. Some carry a $ cost with them others are free. Below is a brief list of a few of the more popular Readers (all free):

There are also have other RSS Reader options. Most “portal” sites like Microsoft Live, iGoogle, MyYahoo,and Pageflakes, (among others) have RSS Aggregators as a part of their functionality. Most email clients have RSS capabilities… Additionally, the Mac OS X and Windows 7 have desktop widgets that allow for RSS feeds to be displayed… get the idea that that RSS is all over out there, you just need to be open to a better way of pulling information to you as opposed to going to get it?

Now all you need to to is create an account with one of these services, and then start gathering “feeds” into your RSS Reader. Here are a couple of criteria that I like to use when trying to choose RSS Readers:

• How easy is it to use?
• Can I organize the feeds into folders or categories?
• How easy is it to add a feed? Does the service have a “wizard” of some sore that helps me find a feed on a page?
• Can it be used online and offline? (this is key for me in case you have time, but not a connection to the internet)
• Can it be accessed via mobile device like a smartphone or tablet… either via the web or an application?
• Is there a “toolbar” feature that makes it easy to subscribe and get to feeds? (see picture below)
• Is it visually appealing? (vain, but if I am going to be looking at something repeatedly, I want it to be nice )

As you begin to explore and investigate RSS, you will find there are additional options like being able to add personal notes that attach to the articles you are saving, “star” important information, “share” information and articles with others or the world in multiple ways. One caution… RSS can get addicting. Start with a few feeds and begin to work up to more as you feel more comfortable. Also, know that it is OK to simply “mark all read” if you feel the amount of information is getting out of control. The really important information will bubble back to the surface again in the future.

Image Credit: Marcos Vecino Rosado via Flickr CC
Video Credit: Lee Lefever via YouTube