All this time, I never knew what the little orange symbol meant. I never really knew it had any meaning at all. I always thought that it was just an icon for the website. Little did I know that it was a major link to a whole another world... a way to subscribe to a site! RSS stands for "Real Simple Syndication." RSS feeds make it possible for a blog reader to "subscribe" to a blog. This way, readers can continuously receive updates and new blogs to read without having to continuously visit the bloggers site. All of this is possible through software called an "aggregator." The aggregator is a feed collector that regularly checks for new information from your selected sites about every hour. What makes this real simple syndication simple is that the information comes to you, instead of you having to go to it. Wow! What a great concept. We, as Americans, are constantly looking for ways to make technology better, faster, and more technologically advanced, and it looks like we have done it. Instead of searching for the information, we now have it coming to us, which is great, but how are we going to use it? Better yet, how can we use it for education?
RSS feeds can be very useful for in the educational realm, for both teachers and students. One really great way for teachers to use RSS feeds is for grading purposes. For example, if you assign your students to write blogs as an assignment, it might be really time consuming to visit each blog website to grade all of them. However, if you subscribed to the RSS feed, then the blogs would automatically come to you. Voila, grading made easy! Now all you would have to do is go to one site to grade all of your students blogs.
Another great way to use RSS feeds would be to subscribe to a "thought for the day." This is a great way to receive daily prompt ideas for writing. This can make writing a little more fun, and increase the anticipation of not knowing what you are going to be writing about until you check your site. In addition, the students can't blame you if they are not crazy about the prompt, i.e., "I didn't make up the prompt, lol!"
Lastly, RSS feeds can be useful when having students conducting research for various assignments. It can be especially useful in group assignments. It is a great way for the students to share their research findings.
So, as you can see RSS feeds can make your life much simpler for both teaching and learning. So, the next time you see that fancy little orange sign, go ahead, click on it. You'll start to receive updates without having to go back to that site, and you'll start to make your internet life a breeze!
How can I use RSS feeds in education?
http://www.flairandsquare.c...RSS: A quick start guide for educators:
RSS Specifications:
RSS feeds for teachers:
RSS feeds in the classroom:
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