RSS Feeds - All You Can Eat (and More)

“(RSS feeds are) a way to leverage the talent of millions of individuals to identify truly useful information in the tidal wave of data the Internet has become.”

http://technologysource.org/article/rss/

The above quote, supplied by Mary Harrsch, epitomizes many of the positive aspects of using RSS, which some people say stands for Real Simple Syndication (Richardson), others say stands for Rich Site Summary (Harrsch), and others say means RDF Site Summary. Technically, the three different RSS explanations refer to different formats, but whatever you believe RSS stands for, hopefully you agree that most of us need a way to organize the morass of information we accumulate. RSS, simply put, lets a user subscribe to weblog entries, websites, video, audio, news and more in order to get information sent to a person who wants it. A person doesn’t have to go back and check a site or blog to see if updates have been posted, because updates are automatically sent to your blog aggregator (such as BlogLines, Google Reader, etc.). All you have to do is remember to check your feed aggregator (also known as a feed reader) and your online info will come to you. Furthermore, you can share that information in a number of ways – you can pass it on easily, a person can check what feeds you are subscribing to, you can tag the info for others, and so on. RSS is becoming one of those Web 2.0 tools that help users see things in different ways, with so many different kinds of related applications and organizational tools available that a basic description does not do it justice. For anyone looking to get started with RSS, the Common Craft video below will give you quick, simple steps.



In a wonderful piece of writing entitled Web 2.0 Ideas for Educators: A Guide to RSS and More, Quentin D’Souza has underlined the fact that where RSS feeds were formerly associated with simple blogs, the last five years have seen an amazing growth in their utilization:

“All types of web applications are using feeds to share data within social networks, through enhancing accessibility to productivity tools, research tools, watch lists, and sharing peer created content. The numbers of applications that are using feeds are growing daily.
New tools have come into existence because of RSS feeds and the trend seems to be continuing to grow. These tools allow you to remix and reformat the content of a feed in a countless different ways.”

D’Souza is not kidding when he says that there are “countless” ways to utilize feeds. There are many aggregators and other fine sites which allow a user to decide how to use search terms, organize, share, label or tag, and so on. I have been using BlogLines and Google Reader for a short while now, and I still don’t feel like I have started using them to their full potential yet. Subscribing is simple, making groups is easy, and creating useful search terms is painless, but I get the feeling that I’ll still make some useful discoveries in the future. For example, I haven’t figured out yet why video from YouTube or TeacherTube will show up on my Google Reader pane but a Voicethread will not.

Now, will RSS feeds help make the next great technological leap in education? Harrsch calls RSS the next killer app for education, specifying that she “would define a killer application as a program that provides the capability for an average person to use technology to solve every day problems and enrich their lives.” Richardson seems to be of the same mind, entitling a chapter of his book (Blog, Wikis, and Podcasts) “RSS: The New Killer App for Educators”. Why are these experts so high on RSS? Well, the benefits of simplifying research and getting updates sent to a learner/educator are obvious. But when further educational opportunities are explored, that’s when things get interesting. Harrsch gives an example of a teacher that finds a useful website and e-mails colleagues to share ideas for classroom use. What could the same teacher do with a blog and RSS feeds?

"If, instead, you post your finds with your ideas for implementation to a Web log equipped with RSS generation capability, you provide a unique information source that can be accessed by thousands of teachers like you that are looking for ways to improve their learning environments. In essence, you have helped to establish an online community of practice specific to teachers of social studies."

The advantage in the second example is that the teacher is accessing and enriching the Read/Write Web; others can learn from that teacher’s work, can comment on his/her blog extending a dialogue, and so on. Not only that, but it’s truly a worldwide opportunity – did I mention that Google Reader has a translator that can make feeds readable in a number of languages?

Will Richardson has pointed out some big pluses to RSS feeds as pertains to teachers and student work in the aforementioned book (as well as on weblogg-ed.com). If a teacher is trying to follow classrooms full of students who are each blogging, it would make sense to use feeds to only view when a blog is updated. Also, Richardson says he has been able to go completely paperless through the use of Weblogs and RSS feeds – I still could not do this in my school yet, but the possibility is intriguing. Furthermore, in what almost seems like an aside in his book, Richardson suggests that RSS could be a fortunate thing for the “lack of media and information literacy skills students have” – which to me would suggest that using RSS feeds may drastically change the way we look at student research, online literacy and student-directed learning.

Personally, I was more than a little perplexed with the information literacy skills displayed by the majority of students in some of my courses. Using RSS feeds should allow me to give them an easy outlet for new avenues of information. When I start one of my next courses, I will give students a choice of topics relating to a novel we will be reading later in the course. Students will be directed to choose three of them, sign up for a feed reader account, and use search terms to start collecting data. When we get to the assignment a month or so later, hopefully they will have some great choices of information to pick from. I think this will be a grand learning experience for both my students and myself, and we’ll see if it works the way Richardson suggests.

What other uses could be found for RSS and student learners? Here are a few general ideas:

· RSS in combination with class Wikis = timely information shared by peers in an engaging, learner-ownership community of learners
· Direct students to RSS feeds when information needs to be really timely – if used properly, feeds can provide learners with extra updated data that may not be found as easily if they’re simply using mainstays Google and Wikipedia.
· Get creative! If you’re using Google Reader, for example (not a bad ideas to use a web-based feed reader so students can access it anywhere), can students find useful info originally written in a different language? Once students (and teacher) are fairly comfortable with RSS, what can be done with merging RSS feeds, remixing, what-have-you?

Finally, there are clearly some positive aspects to using RSS feeds in different educational ways. What about any negative aspects or problems? Armelle O’Neal listed a few potential minuses at http://www.microsoft.com/atwork/manageinfo/rss.mspx :

1. RSS feeds provide no history, which means that although you always get the newest information, you can easily miss an article of interest to you if you don’t check the feeds for a few days (when you’re on vacation, for example).
2. RSS feeds are a bandwidth waster because they automatically download RSS files (usually hourly) to check for updates and changes.
3. RSS feeds are complicated to set up. As people hear about RSS and understand its value, they also become disappointed by the fact that it is not as easy as surfing the Web.
4. RSS content doesn’t lend itself to search. Many search engines include RSS feeds but they struggle to identify which information is new and, hence, greatly limit the value of search operations on this type of content.
5. RSS feeds usually only show an abridged version of the content, which can be cryptic and may require you to open your Web browser to see the full article.

Number one could be a problem, but as long as we’re using it during the school year, it shouldn’t be a biggie. The second point may be a problem, but I don’t know yet if it will hinder student use. Problem three I disagree with, because it seems pretty simple to set up an RSS feed.. Number 4 doesn’t appear to be a big problem from what I’ve seen so far. Problem number 5 is not a problem to me at all; the purpose of using RSS fees is so a user doesn’t have to look at everything, and that would include seeing an abridged version, at least at first. RSS users can always create a clipping for later viewing or open up a web browser if they need to do so. We should keep in mind that O’Neal’s article was published in 2006, and it possible that the severity of some of these problems have decreased in the interim.

Overall, none of the potential problems above outweighs the great opportunities for educators and learners in using RSS feeds. I haven’t even begun to discuss some of the possibilities of using RSS feeds when using Technorati or FeedBurner, but this blog is becoming a little long-winded. How about I just leave you with a promotional quote from Technorati’s site:

“If Google is the world’s reference library, Technorati is becoming its coffeehouse” – Time magazine
Please excuse me, I need to go get some coffee.