RSS
RSS
Presentation by:
Kathleen Cercone PT, PhD
There are many reasons to include a newsfeed into your CMS course site and it is a great way to get dynamic, changing content into your password protected course website in a CMS.
I have used a feed in my course for several reasons. One was to incorporate current health related events based on the topics of the course (Nutrition or Biology). I would get the feed from the website and put it into the course site. I will explain how to do this soon.
Another reason that I used a feed in my course was to provide current course information to my students such as to let them know when grades are posted, updates to homework, hints on how to complete the homework or current discussion or reminders of dates and deadlines.
How this website will work:
- Introduction to RSS: What is it and why do we need to know about it.
- Terminology, Feeds, Aggregators, Syndication and graphics that you will need to know
- Feeds from Website
- AND/OR Blogger: Make your blog
- Create Widget
- Add your RSS Feed to your course
- Finishing the look
- How to use your Cellphone
- Show students where it is and what you want them to use it for: Goals and Objectives of course
- Extras and links and Cellphone/Twitter integration
- SHARE AND TALK ABOUT THIS ON MY BLOG!!!!! Right here.
What is RSS?
RSS: RSS stands for Real Simple Syndication. It is also sometimes called Rich Site Summary too but that is not as popular.
RSS is an electronic file that has news or headlines. If you have ever clicked on the icon, you may have noticed strange code in your browser. That code is an XML file or Extensible Markup Language. You do not need to know anything about that- it is all behind the scenes.
Here is a wonderful Youtube video that explains it very simply.
The graphics show what you may see on web sites and the symbol indicates that the web site produces a news feed that you can “subscribe” to.
RSS Explained= RSS file = RSS feed = RSS channel = feed
The Web offers a lot of information and can lead to information overload. The good side of this is:
- It helps engage students in conversations
- The news information may provide a method of demonstrating important information
- Animations, movies, graphics are available to assist in teaching and learning.
- Current events, training, conversations, news= great stuff, but too much!!!
How can we make use of this information in such a way, that it is organized and we can find exactly what we need without hunting for hours. How can we help our students do the same. You can almost consider the links as a list of items that you want to view.
Say you have your students looking for good sites on a specific topic such as current news in genetic research. They start accumulating a lot of sites with great information that is being produced daily. There is so much information, how can you keep up with the new information that continues to be produced. How can you see if they have updated their content without going to each and every site individually?
This is a sample graphic to look for. There are many more- we will look at them later!
Using RSS, you can “subscribe” to a web site that updates its contents, and get updated instantly with all of the new content with one viewing. You do not have to manually visit each of them to see the new content on each website or blog.
The Internet is moving towards shared content and not only is RSS useful for content aggregation but it’s helpful in syndicating content.
What is Syndication? In the real publishing world, syndication indicates that an arrangements was made so that another source could publish the same article. Popular newspaper comic strips, for example, are usually syndicated. Thus, the RSS allows the website to be “republished” in the online venue.
What is an Aggregator? An aggregator is software that is designed to subscribe to websites through syndication, and automatically download the updates so that the reader can review them when they have time. The RSS XML file is read by the aggregator and converts it to a format you can read.
So how does RSS save you time and where does it go?
If you have subscribed to each of the RSS feeds, you could have a lot of individual files sent to your email and you would need a lot of space in your inbox. Additionally, by subscribing to RSS feeds, the requested updates are safe as you do not give out your email address to anyone.
The way to save all of the feeds is in a RSS reader; RSS reader = news reader = RSS aggregator = a program that can read RSS files. There are many readers available. Some of them are you need on your computer and some are web based. Your browser may have a built in feed reader. Safari, Opera, Internet Explorer and Firefox all have this option.
I use iGoogle and will talk about what Google offers on later pages. Right now, for the purpose of this presentation, you do not need a reader as you want to put an individual RSS feed into your course. Learn how to find RSS on page Get RSS!
