Thing #8: RSS Feeds and Readers

Have you heard of RSS? Maybe you’ve seen those little orange symbols on websites? Possibly you have heard colleagues and friends talk about their readers. Well don’t worry, according to this survey you’re still in the majority, but this is changing rapidly.

In the information world, RSS is not only revolutionizing the way news, media, and content creators share information, but it also is swiftly changing the way everyday users are consuming information. As leaders in the acquisition of information, it is one Web 2.0 tool that you MUST know how to use and use regularly.

RSS stands for “Really Simple Syndication” and is a file format for delivering regularly updated information over the web. Just think about the blogs, websites, and news information sources you visit everyday. It takes time to visit those sites and scour the ad-filled and image-heavy pages for just the text you want to read, doesn’t it?

Now imagine if you could visit all those blogs, information sources, and web pages in just one place and all at the same time … without being bombarded with advertising… without having to search for new information on the page you’d already seen or read before… and without having to consume a lot of time visiting each site individually.

Would that be valuable to you? Well, it’s available now through an RSS reader (sometimes called an aggregator).

Background Information:
To learn learning about RSS feeds and what free tools you can use to do this, here are some activities you need to complete

1.Watch this video - RSS in Plain English (YouTube won't show in district but here is the TeacherTube copy!)

2. Read Newbie's Guide to Google Reader

Now that you have background and understanding about RSS and readers, it's time for some Discovery Activities:

1. Select a reader and create a free account.

• Google Reader. Tutorial. Tour. The Library2Play Team recommends Google Reader especially if you set up your blog in Blogger because you already have a Google account!
• Bloglines. Tutorial.

2. Now add at least 5 blog sites to your reader plus any news sources you may want to follow. Most likely, you will be pasting the address into the links bar inside the reader to add the feeds you choose. Just follow the directions provided by your reader.

Here are some suggested blogs to look at. You may select others by going to Google Blog Search and searching keywords of your choice.

• Librarian Philospher (Library 2.o topics & Library leadership) Check the blogroll for more ideas.
• A Library By Any Other Name (general Library topics, curriculum & resource ideas, book reviews) Check the blogroll for specific types of blogs.
• Other "neighborhood" blogs: Mike Falick's Blog , Mary Grace Landrum's Blog, EdTech Blog, Of Life, Education...& Books
• SBISD student participation: RCE Musings, DayDreamsInTechnicolor (MHS), Bricky Bric and Ms Yeaman's Class, samples from the Housman Lunch Bunch bloggers.
• Some nationally recognized administrators' blogs: Practical Theory (Chris Lehmann, principal), Meriwether Lewis Elem School (Tim Lauer, principal), BethelBlog (Oregon superintendent)

3. Create a post in your blog about this Thing #8 that answers these questions:

• What do you like about RSS and readers?
• How do you think you might be able to use this technology in your school or personal life?
• How can libraries/teachers/administrators use readers or take advantage of this new technology?

4. Optional: Make your reader list public. Create a public page with Google Reader or provide a link to your public Bloglines account .

Sharing information is a key component for 21st Century life-long learners and you have made that activity easy now that you have an RSS reader set up. Have fun reading all about whatever!

Thing #9: Useful Library-Related Blogs and News Feeds

Now that you have an RSS reader (your Google Reader or Bloglines account), you can begin adding other blog feeds that interest you. Technorati, a blog tracking site, reports that they are currently tracking 133 million blogs. Out of the millions of blogs available, how do you find the ones that are of most value to you? There are several resources that you can use.

First, read this post from The Cool Cat Teacher blog for some great suggestions on how to select good RSS feeds: How to Create Your Circle of the Wise.
Next, explore some other options for locating appropriate RSS feeds.

Discovery Resources:
When visiting your favorite websites -- look for RSS feed icons (like this ) that indicate the website provides it. Often a feed icon will be displayed somewhere in the navigation bar of the site.

Google Blog Search - See what appears when you search "Library2Play" or "Spring Branch ISD".

Use Blogline's Search tool - Bloglines recently expanded search tool lets you search for news feeds in addition to posts, citations and the web. Use the Search for Feeds option to locate RSS feeds you might be interested in.

Consider Edublogs' award winners. Each of the winners and the other nominees in each catagory have blogrolls containing useful, helpful and often highly respected representative blogs that could meet your need. Click a catagory and go see what is there!

Other Search tools that can help you find feeds:

School Library Blogs on Suprglu - this site offers a selection of postings from lots of different blogs by School Librarians. Click on the link under each post to visit the actual blog.

Topix.net - This search tool allows you to locate recent newsfeed items based upon keyword or phrase searching. The tool focuses specifically on news and media outlet RSS feeds for information, not weblogs.

Syndic8.com - Syndic8 is an open directory of RSS feeds that contains thousands of RSS feeds that users have submitted.

Technorati - Technorati is a popular blog finding tool that lets you search for blogs. Since RSS feeds are inherent to all blogging tools, Technorati Blog Search can help you find RSS feeds for topic specific blogs you may be interested in. Additonal Resource: Technorati Tutorial on finding and adding your blog.

Atomic Learning has lots of video clips on RSS feeds. Type "feeds" into the search box for the basics. If you want more, type "RSS" into the search box. (requires SBISD password info.)

Discovery Exercise:

Explore some of the search tools noted above that can help you locate some RSS feeds.

Add any pertinent feeds to your RSS reader.

Create a blog post about your experience that answers these questions:

• Which Search tool was the easiest for you?



• Which was more confusing?



• What kind of useful feeds did you find in your travels? Or what kind of unusual ones did you find?

EXTRA STUFF -- Feed icon information:

In February of 2006, the adoption of a standard feed icon among websites and browsers finally began to assist in stopping the madness and confusion caused by so many variations. So far this icon has been adopted by many websites and browsers, including Opera and FireFox, where it displays in the address bar:

Internet Explorer 7 has something like this as well. For more information about this emerging new standard, see Feedicons.com.