RSS

15 minutes left to my lunch break... what should I do? Ah... I'll check out some movie reviews on Rotten Tomatoes.
10 minutes left to my lunch break... come on... why is the internet connection so slow?
5 minutes left... finally! What?!? All that for nothing? There's no new reviews since I last checked! What a waste of time!
0 minutes left... back to the grind...

(Fact: Network internet connections can lag and be this slow... no joke!)

Tired of downloading a website that hasn't been updated?

Well, RSS will solve your problems! RSS stands for "Really Simple Syndication" or "Rich Site Summary". There are different RSS reader applications out there to help organize which sites have been updated for you to read, such as Google Reader and Bloglines. Many web browser like Internet Explorer 8 and Mozilla Firefox have RSS feed features as well. Here is a great video by Common Craft about how to use Google Reader - RSS in Plain English.

Here are a few more:
• Amphetadesk (www.disobey.com/amphetadesk/)
• NewsGator (www.newsgator.com/)
• NewsisFree (www.newsisfree.com/)
• NetNewsWire (http://ranchero.com/netnewswire/)

RSS Feed Friendly Sites Search Engines
2RSS (http://www.2rss.com/)
Feedroll (http://www.feedroll.com/)
Moreover (http://www.moreover.com/)

To be honest, learning to use Google Reader wasn't the hard part. It was trying to decide which sites were worth putting on the Google Reader. Which blogs were still be updated regularly by the blogger, which sites were useful and I would want that information brought to me at my fingertips? I soon learned that it is possible to have over 50 feeds, but it gets to be a bit much since I couldn't just browse through all of them in one sitting. I also felt that when I did log into my Google reader, I should read through all the feeds to get back at zero unread feeds kinda like checking my email. Learning it the hard way, I realized that the beauty of the reader is that you can come back to it any time and it keeps a record of all those you didn't get to, so, I didn't have to go back to zero unread feeds. It was too time consuming to read them all or if I wasn't in the mood to check that site out, I would skim it, but nothing was absorbed from viewing the page. The lesson learned here is your unread feeds won't go anywhere, but they will keep piling up until you read it!


Feeds for Professional Development
Here are the top 3 blogs that I follow via RSS:
1. http://www.freetech4teachers.com/ - this is a great blog. As teachers we like free educational applications and this website collects many different kinds of online tools we can use. This site is updated frequently with a brief summary of the new tool being introduced. There's a wide variety of applications found from Forvo "audio wiki" for pronunciation to math and science websites to college planning sites.

2. http://heyjude.wordpress.com/ - this blog posts some interesting topics that really make you think and question about educational practices such as this video link below about Teaching Naked- Without Powerpoint or a presentation by JoAnne Witt (Australia) - Scaffolding students to an academic standard of information literacy



3. http://itsnotallflowersandsausages.blogspot.com/ - this blog is much lighter than the two above. I like the voice of the blogger. She reminds of Becky from the Shopaholic series, but Mimi is a teacher who loves to organize. I read this blog for entertainment and to relate to some of her thoughts and experiences since I'm a teacher too. Sometimes it's just nice to read about other people's thoughts, routines, practices, quirks, etc.

Advantages of RSS feeds

1. There are neither advertisements nor spam in RSS feeds.
2. RSS saves time. (For example, I have been able to cut down my reading time from 4 hours to 30 minutes per day, while reading three times as much content.)
3. RSS can be used to deliver content to your patrons and customers.
4. If you provide an RSS feed for your Web site, it is likely to boost the number of people reading your content, enabling a higher return on investment.
5. Aggregators are inexpensive, and setup should require less than 10 minutes.
(RSS. By: Cohen, Steven M.. Computers in Libraries, Feb2004, Vol. 24 Issue 2, p28-28)

Disadvantages of RSS feeds
1. Not every site has an RSS feed.
2. With ease of use comes the potential for information overload. Aggregators can become unruly, quickly.
3. If you download one aggregator at work and one at home, it is difficult to synchronize content between the two. (This is why I believe that Web-based aggregators will be more popular in the future.)
4. RSS content is not being used to its potential. While some feeds can be customized now, more need to be available in the future.) RSS. By: Cohen, Steven M.. Computers in Libraries, Feb2004, Vol. 24 Issue 2, p28-28)

Implications for me and my students?
I personally will continue to use Google reader because I like how a summary of all the new posts are summarized or glimpsed at in the summary page. I like the idea of having something of interest to me readily available for me to read when I have the time. I feel like this is an easy way to keep up-to-date with what is availabe on the WWW as well as updates as to how I can see the the newest, baddest online applications. It's a great way for librarians, and teachers to keep track of trends, Web 2.0 tools, updates, etc. Many of us who are not connected tend to "fall behind" with the current trends. With RSS, it finds and summarizes for you! Otherwise, how else would I find out about great apps like Wordle or sites like SmartBean for parents to stay updated about education. It's also very cool when some of the sites you follow are mentioned in other blogger's links. It's a big world out there, but with Web 2.0, the world doesn't seem so big afterall.

I find it a little harder to use RSS readers with elementary students. I think this is better for highschool students. This could be useful for long term research projects based on current news and subjects online. I would even encourage my senior students to practice using RSS readers to keep track of the sites with their interests since in reality our students will probably do more online reading than actually taking out a book from the library. So, it would be advantageous to introduce the idea of RSS to my students.


Resources:
Information Tools: Using Blogs, RSS, and Wikis As Professional Resources. By: Saxton, Beth. Young Adult Library Services, Winter2008, Vol. 6 Issue 2, p27-29

RSS. By: Cohen, Steven M.. Computers in Libraries, Feb2004, Vol. 24 Issue 2, p28-28,

Using RSS to Create New Services. By: Fichter, Darlene. Online, Jul/Aug2004, Vol. 28 Issue 4, p52-55