More than just knowing stuff!

RSS feeds – What are they, how are they used?

January 16, 2008

Today I listened to a broadcast of EdTechTalk with a topic on RSS. Still feeling very new to many Web2.0 technologies I have spent a lot of time these holidays becoming more aware of the vast range available these days.

I had heard about RSS feeds mid year in 2007 but really didn’t get it at that time – at all! It was only addressed briefly as part of a blogs and wikis workshop and there was so much going around my head that I was unable to comprehend one more thing.

However, since then I have taken the time to explore and press those orange buttons to see what they do. I started subscribing to feeds mainly as widgets on my iGoogle home page. Then I pushed my boundaries and explored iGoogle Reader and viewed the explanation video. I learnt that RSS was a format for delivering regularly changing web content. Still I was not too sure what this all meant in the big picture of learning and teaching.

Today when I listened to EdTechTalk things started to fall into place. I heard how teachers use RSS feeds in their classrooms. Some of these were –

For Students -
To follow other classroom pages
To follow their interests
To follow teacher pages
As reading material to respond and comment on
To support collaborative projects with students subscribing to each other’s pages, such as in pageflakes

For Teachers -
For professional reading
To find appropriate classroom resources and content

For Parents -
To follow student and classroom pages

Now to explore and learn further. Thank goodness for holidays!

(Thanks to the team at EdTechTalk for the heads up on RSS)

Entry Filed under: Web2.0, learning. Tags: collaboration, learning, RSS, Web2.0.