Tuesday, August 4, 2009

RSS Aggregators

When I first heard this term, I was filled with fear!!
It sounded very complicated and techno to me, but when I read a little more about it, I was surprised at how easy it was to utilise.
I also enjoyed watching Lee Le fever’s YouTube presentation on the subject entitled RSS in plain English. It was fun and informative.
RSS or Really Simple Syndication allows the user to subscribe to and read feeds from favourite blogs, web pages or photo albums.





I have subscribed to Google Reader and have the blogs for this course listed there. I find it very convenient to open Google Reader and have all my information in one location. Google Reader also has functions for adding new subscriptions, marking posts as read, renaming subscriptions and making notes.
An RSS makes managing information a simple and uncomplicated process.

This could be a valuable tool in the classroom, saving time, but also keeping information in one easy location.
For the learning manager, all new entries on student’s blogs can be read through quickly in one place, checked for appropriate content and comments made on a particular post if necessary.

If a class was using a blog for a specific purpose, they could also use an RSS to keep updated with new posts from each member of the class, as well as any relevant subject matter from the web.

In secondary school, students could set up their own RSS aggregator and subscribe to feeds relevant to the unit of work they are working on. Maybe the learning manager could get them started on suitable sites and then they could add to it as they progressed through the topic of work.
It’s an opportunity for each student to contribute something they feel is worthwhile,informative and interesting to the group.
I am really enjoying using Google Reader; it’s saving me so much time.
Best
Mia

References
Lefever, L. YouTube (2007) Video: RSS in Plain English. Retrieved August 1, 2009 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0klgLsSxGsU

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