So today in my online class about Web 2.0 we were discussing RSS Feeds. I had never used them at all, though I had seen stuff about them all around teh interwebs (that's geekish for the internet). I made my discussion posting about them, and I was asked a question by a colleague of mine in the class: "What exactly does an RSS feed allow you to do? What benefits come by adding them to your site/blog and how do you?"
I think I came up with a pretty good answer that I posted to the discussion board for our class, but I think it might be good enough to actually post on my blog for anyone else to read. My response follows.
My best way to describe it is as follows. Again, I've never played around with RSS feeds until today, so here goes:
When I get home from work, I usually grab my laptop, open up my browser (Firefox, in my case) and start going through my usual routine of looking at websites. I have a list, most of them are either music related or geek-ish in nature or I'll go to Facebook and see how everyone is doing. Now, sometimes if I have a lot of time, I'll be paying a visit to 15-20 different sites. If I don't have much time, I'm going to maybe 5 sites. Now, a lot of those sites have an RSS feed on them. Wouldn't it be great if, to save time, I could just view ONE site to see all the latest updates on the 20 sites I like to visit most?
That's basically what an RSS feed is. Let's say I want to go to Drum Corps International (dci.org), then Winter Guard International (wgi.org), and follow that up with Engadget.com (because I like all that tech stuff). That could take me a lot of time and when I go to those sites, there might not be anything updated! It might all be stuff I've seen before. Having an RSS aggregator (is that the term?) allows me to put all that information in the same place to be updated as soon as it is updated on the original site. So, all I have to go to is google.com for the Google Reader where I have all those sites subscribed to. I just opened up google and saw that WGI has an updated story on how you can watch videos on their site from January. None of the other sites had updated since I last looked, so I don't have to waste my time by going there and seeing what they have. I know it's just the old stuff.
RSS is really just a way to save time. In regards to this class, I can see how it would work in education if you take the following situation. Let's say you have ALL your students make blogs for a project. Let's say they have to update their blog every day talking about... let's say dogs. It's a project on dogs for a animal science class. They have to go on their blog every day to talk about how their dog is doing at home with any usual or unusual behavior. Now, you, as their teacher, COULD just go on to EVERY student's blog to see if they've updated it. Instead, you can subscribe to everyone's RSS feed. Then, all you have to do is check one site which will always have the most updated information on it so you know who has updated their blogs, and who hasn't... all in one place.
That's what I got so far. Hope it helps.
Of course, RSS only works with sites that are able to produce RSS feeds. Plenty of sites don't use RSS, but they are also sites that don't get updated too often. For example, I like to go to West Chester University's marching band website (for obvious reasons) and also because my students think that it is almost as great as I do. However, it is hardly ever updated, especially when it isn't summer or fall. So, even were it to have an RSS feed, it wouldn't be used too often.
There's a reason for this. Blog sites and other modern, more professional websites use something called a Content Management System (CMS). On my band's website (glasgowdragonbands.com) , I've used Joomla. Sites that use a CMS like Joomla are REALLY easy to update and it would make sense to offer an RSS feed. Now, actually, I don't have an RSS feed on the band's site, but I'm sure I could make one now that I know how it works.
I think I came up with a pretty good answer that I posted to the discussion board for our class, but I think it might be good enough to actually post on my blog for anyone else to read. My response follows.
My best way to describe it is as follows. Again, I've never played around with RSS feeds until today, so here goes:
When I get home from work, I usually grab my laptop, open up my browser (Firefox, in my case) and start going through my usual routine of looking at websites. I have a list, most of them are either music related or geek-ish in nature or I'll go to Facebook and see how everyone is doing. Now, sometimes if I have a lot of time, I'll be paying a visit to 15-20 different sites. If I don't have much time, I'm going to maybe 5 sites. Now, a lot of those sites have an RSS feed on them. Wouldn't it be great if, to save time, I could just view ONE site to see all the latest updates on the 20 sites I like to visit most?
That's basically what an RSS feed is. Let's say I want to go to Drum Corps International (dci.org), then Winter Guard International (wgi.org), and follow that up with Engadget.com (because I like all that tech stuff). That could take me a lot of time and when I go to those sites, there might not be anything updated! It might all be stuff I've seen before. Having an RSS aggregator (is that the term?) allows me to put all that information in the same place to be updated as soon as it is updated on the original site. So, all I have to go to is google.com for the Google Reader where I have all those sites subscribed to. I just opened up google and saw that WGI has an updated story on how you can watch videos on their site from January. None of the other sites had updated since I last looked, so I don't have to waste my time by going there and seeing what they have. I know it's just the old stuff.
RSS is really just a way to save time. In regards to this class, I can see how it would work in education if you take the following situation. Let's say you have ALL your students make blogs for a project. Let's say they have to update their blog every day talking about... let's say dogs. It's a project on dogs for a animal science class. They have to go on their blog every day to talk about how their dog is doing at home with any usual or unusual behavior. Now, you, as their teacher, COULD just go on to EVERY student's blog to see if they've updated it. Instead, you can subscribe to everyone's RSS feed. Then, all you have to do is check one site which will always have the most updated information on it so you know who has updated their blogs, and who hasn't... all in one place.
That's what I got so far. Hope it helps.
Of course, RSS only works with sites that are able to produce RSS feeds. Plenty of sites don't use RSS, but they are also sites that don't get updated too often. For example, I like to go to West Chester University's marching band website (for obvious reasons) and also because my students think that it is almost as great as I do. However, it is hardly ever updated, especially when it isn't summer or fall. So, even were it to have an RSS feed, it wouldn't be used too often.
There's a reason for this. Blog sites and other modern, more professional websites use something called a Content Management System (CMS). On my band's website (glasgowdragonbands.com) , I've used Joomla. Sites that use a CMS like Joomla are REALLY easy to update and it would make sense to offer an RSS feed. Now, actually, I don't have an RSS feed on the band's site, but I'm sure I could make one now that I know how it works.
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Adding an RSS feed to your band site would be pretty cool.
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