RSS
What is RSS
- RSS stands for Rich Site Summary or Really Simple Syndication. These are feeds that provide titles, authors and summaries of up-to-date articles from websites with continuously changing content.
History of RSS
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- 1997 Ramanathan V. Guha creates RDF (Resource Desccription Framework) which provides information about information (metadata). i.e. the titles, authors and summaries of the updated articles.
- 1999 Netscape creates RSS v. .90 for its personalized homepages but abandons its development because it is believed to be too complicated.
- 1999 Userland's Dan Winer develops RSS v. .91
- Programmers begin creating their own versions of RSS and compatibility issues arise.
- 2003 Userland develops RSS v. 2.0 and hands ownership rights over to Harvard Law School.
- Harvard Law allows the distribution and customization under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share Alike license.
Do I Need Special Software to Receive RSS Feeds?
- No. Most poular web browsers such as Windows Internet Explorer, Firefox and Safari already have the necessary tools to subscribe to RSS feeds. However, if your browser does not have these capabilities you will need to download a Reader.
- Feed Reader- software that displays the RSS feed in a user-friendly manner so that you do not have to decipher RSS the coding.
- You may also sign up for RSS feeds at sites like Google Reader, the registration is free, for basic usage, but no software needs to be downloaded.
How to Receive RSS Feeds
- Many web browsers give the user the ability to personalize their homepage by allowing them to choose what type of content they would like displayed on their homepage. Much of the default content on the homepage is already RSS based. Follow these steps to add the content you crave to your homepage.
- Go to your favorite sites.
- Look for the orange XML tab or the blue RSS tab and click on it.
- Copy the URL of the feed site directly from the address bar.
- Go back to your homepage and paste the URL of the feed site into your add content box.
- The feed should now be added to your homepage. It should show titles and summaries of a few different articles relating to your search. If you are using a feed service such as bloglines.com the steps will be the same except on 4 you will go to your feed service website and paste the URL into their add feed box.
Why Use RSS Feeds?
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- RSS feeds provide a person with information that the person is intersested in reading.
- RSS feeds will bring all the information to one cenralized location so that the person need not waste time searching many different web sites to find the information.
- RSS feeds are FREE
- RSS feeds do not require the person to sign-up for any newsletters or send any personal information over the web to subscribe to the feed.
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- This means that the feeds that are received will be SPAM-FREE.
Why would We use RSS in the Classroom?
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- For Educational Research.
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- RSS can enable students/teachers to collect information concerning a particular area.
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- An RSS feed can be used to inform students/teachers about current issues.
- For Communication and Assignments.
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- Rather than visiting each students weblog or resource/webfolio the teacher can have that information sent directly to one source.
Articles on Classroom use
RSS Readers
Blogs that I subscribe to:
www.thinklearnlive.edublogs.org
http://macmomma.blogspot.com
www.academicsandbox.com
http://advanceducation.blogspot.com
http://burcuakyol.com
http://www.dailywritingtips.com/
http://www.miltonramirez.com/
http://english-jack.blogspot.com
http://esl-teaching-resources.blogspot.com
http://www.freetech4teachers.com/
http://www.headsupenglish.com
Works Cited
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