Do you recognize this symbol? I've seen it everywhere for a number of years now but I never knew what it symbolized until this past January. It's the symbol for RSS, abbreviation for "real simple syndication". What is RSS? Wikipedia describes RSS as "a family of web feed formats used to publish frequently updated works—such as blog entries, news headlines, audio, and video—in a standardized format.[2] An RSS document (which is called a "feed", "web feed",[3] or "channel") includes full or summarized text, plus metadata such as publishing dates and authorship. Web feeds benefit publishers by letting them syndicate content automatically. They benefit readers who want to subscribe to timely updates from favored websites or to aggregate feeds from many sites into one place". (Wikipedia, 2010)
The Learning Process
The learning process was fairly... simple. The best part of RSS is that it is so easy to understand and to get up and running. I watched the commoncraft video on RSS which did a great job of explaining the concept behind RSS. What a revelation!!! Content comes to me rather than me having to go and get it. Whoever thought of this is my new tech hero.The second step of the learning process involved getting my account. I was already a google user (gmail and blogger) so it made sense to sign up with Google Reader; I also didn't want another user name and password to remember!! Using the information from the commoncraft video, I quickly subscribed to the required blogs as well as the ones that were of interest to me. Voila, posts started flowing in immediately. For me, it was great having everything in one place; a definite time saver.
The next step has been ongoing: using Google Reader on a regular basis. I check my reader twice a week and I can get through 200-300 posts in approximately 40 minutes. This includes bookmarking the valuable ones to my Delicious account, commenting on blog posts of my classmates as well as posting other links to twitter. I have fallen into a comfortable routine with Google Reader and I don't feel overwhelmed by the volume of content at all.
The final step has not even been taken. There are a number of "tools" within Google Reader that are available that I haven't taken advantage of... yet. There is the ability to add tags to posts, allowing content to be stored in folders. Although this mimics the use of a social bookmarking site, it is still a great tool. As well, posts can be "starred" so that I can quickly refer to them at a later date. They last tool I think is awesome is the "shared items" page that I can create. I can put the really amazing stuff in here and others can subscribe to this page via a RSS feed. Some day...
My Personal Learning
There isn't much to report in this regard as I don't really visit enough blogs and websites (for personal reasons) to warrant the use of a RSS feed. I will check the Edmonton Journal online daily and then TSN online every couple of days... that's it. While it is true that I could still use Google Reader in order to get only the current content from these organizations, both of them do a great job of updating and keeping content current. Another reason for this is that I prefer to keep my "teaching" related feeds separate from my personal ones.
I do see a use a potential use of Google Reader in a more "personal" way. As I mentioned in my previous blog post on blogging, a local teacher was viewing posts from the blog I created while teaching overseas in Macau. What a great way to research a different part of the world. By using key words to search for specific blogs within Google Reader, I can find information that may have been difficult to locate via a regular Google search. As well, I believe a blog would offer much more information than the more "touristy" stuff I would readily find on the web.
RSS and Teaching & Learning
As mentioned, I have used Google Reader regularly to view a number of blogs that I am required and that I chose to follow. Without RSS, this would have been time consuming to say the least! As a teacher, one of the most crucial aspects of my professional life is "time". Teachers are a busy lot who are often unwilling to try new things or change their routines because they may be too "time consuming". However, RSS is a great time "saver" that teachers should take advantage of especially since technology integration within teaching & learning will only increase over time. Here are some wonderful uses of RSS in the classroom as told by Richardson (2009):
1. Read student blogs on your Google Reader. No searching folders or email for them. They all come to the same spot and you know when they arrived. Comments can be provided online leading to a paperless experience!
2. Have students create their own accounts to aid in information collection and research. Students can used the "advanced search" link to search news sources or other blogs. Careful, mountains of information can be accessed this way.
3. Students can see what others find interesting on certain topics by searching "tags" in social bookmarking sites such as Delicious and Diigo. I can search tags in Delicious via RSS: del.icio.us/rss/tag/(insert tag here).
There are so many uses for RSS in the classroom and I personally have just scratched the surface. I would certainly recommend this tool to teachers and students but I'm not sure if I would take it beyond the three points mentioned above. I am concerned about being "consumed" by the many options and features available.
Conclusion
I would define RSS as an extremely powerful "tool" that allows me to subscribe to content on the web that "I" find relevant. The best part, the content comes to me and I don't have to go looking for it. I can quickly skim & scan large volumes of content and tag, bookmark and/or share the "good stuff."
I have enjoyed learning about many Web 2.0 tools in this course, however I find that "new knowledge" often creates "more content" for me to view, dissect, and evaluate. I am always worried about information overload and I see this as a barrier to my ability to utilize the many new tools and the content they create. My Google Reader account goes a long way to help me "manage" more and more content which allows me to find the few gold nuggets amongst the mountains of slag that come my way. This has been one of my favourite tools to learn about about and one that I will use for the rest of my life.
References
Google Reader Help. Retrieved from http://www.google.com/support/reader/?hl=en
Richardson, W. (2009) Blogs, Wikis, Podcasts and Other Powerful Web Tools for Classrooms. Corwin Press
RSS in Plain English. Commoncraft. Retrieved from http://www.commoncraft.com/rss_plain_english
Wikipedia. Retrieved from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RSS
Thanks, Mel. I remember (back in the day) when I followed 20 or 30 blogs and I had them all bookmarked in a folder that I kept in my toolbar. I would religiously click through each bookmark in that folder once a day (or twice if I was procrastinating) to see if something was new (of course, that relied on me remembering what I had read already!). When I was reading Stephen Abrams' blog one day he talked about something called Bloglines, which (as you pointed out in your post) allowed him to follow and read 100s of blogs a day in very short time. I was intrigued and wanted to learn more, so I subscribed to bloglines and the rest is history. It is a time saver for sure and even more so now that I have switched to Google Reader. I love being able to organize my blogs into folders (I have folders for various topics, including Libraries, School Libraries, Technology, Literacy, etc.). I follow student blogs and I keep track of my favourite parenting blogs all in one space. It is still my favourite way to procrastinate, but it is so much simpler now that I can find it all in one tab whenever I am looking for something to read!
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