I was working with colleagues recently, discussing technology, and I casually tossed around the term RSS feed. I was presented with the question, “What’s an RSS feed?” I quickly tried to answer the question, but there is certainly much more to understanding RSS than I was able to quickly explain. So here is a little more on RSS.
Very simply the term RSS means Really Simple Syndication. Many people are familiar with the term syndication, especially in reference to television and radio shows or newspaper columns. The same concept applies with technology. Just as traditional radio and television shows or newspaper columns are distributed to a wider audience when syndicated, so is technology like web news casts, blog posts, or podcasts. The benefit of using RSS feeds is the compilation of various sources, or feeds, in one place. Many web browsers have feed readers included and there are a number of dedicated programs that act feed readers or aggregators. Instead of browsing to a number of different web sites to hunt down your content it is ‘fed’ to you. Anytime an update is made the newest content is automatically sent to your feed reader.
Users subscribe to feeds by clicking the feed icon on a website or blog. I’m sure many people have seen this icon but just didn’t know what to do with it. It’s often the small orange square with the white dot in the bottom left corner and two arcs beaming from the dot. Once the you subscribe only the content you want is sent to you.
At this point I have to refer to a great resource created by Will Richardson- anything more here would be rundunant when he has already created a great guide, “The How’s and Why’s of RSS Feeds”
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Check out this video on RSS in Plain English
I wanted to share my thoughts on Twitter. Yesterday while talking about blogging I was asked whether my blog was up to date. The short answer, “No”. But I did add that I had included a twitter widget on my blog in an attempt to have some up to date information. Twitter is a great little tool to update a portion of your blog quickly and easily. It’s so easy that it can be done via text message from your mobile phone.
I used twitter alot when I was on a trip to New Orleans with a group of students volunteering for habitat for humanity. It was a great way to keep people up to date with the events of our trip.
The premise of Twitter is providing an answer to the question, “What are you doing?”. A kind of microblog, Twitter limits you to 140 characters per post (or “tweet”). You can ‘follow’ other Twitter users’ post on your twitter home page or on your cell phone, and other users may ‘follow’ you. This is how parents followed their children while we were in New Orleans.
In education it could be a way to post homework for students. The following Web 2.0 Teaching Blog describes some uses for Twitter in education http://web20teach.blogspot.com/2007/08/twitter-tweets-for-higher-education.html
When I first began my blog I had visions of typing away on my computer, writing on a variety of topics related to technology, with the hope of providing a source of information and ideas. I found that the idea was easier than the practice. Most often I found it difficult to separate my opinions from my daily experiences as an educator and technology resource teacher. In reaction, I didn’t post some of the things I had been writing and updates to my blog ceased.
Today, it is with renewed interest and inspiration from my involvement in the graduate Educational Technology program at Central Connecticut State University that I write and post again.
Creativity and the ability to express myself creatively are essential elements of my personality. Over time technology has become an essential part of my creative expression and fuels my personal interest in digital photography and video.
Developments in technology in recent years have promoted the use of technology to communicate and to collaborate. Technology developments are exciting and the future of technology lies in people being online, connected, communicating, and collaborating.
This is the primary motivation for my return to the Ed. Tech program at CCSU. I hope to learn the tools that will help me better connect and communicate in a growing tech driven society. I’m most excited to learn Flash and web development tools.
So to my classmates who are now finding their way here to my blog- welcome. I look forward to working with you.
