Ashley Carr
September 12, 2007
Reference:
Richardson, W. (2006). Blogs, wikis, podcasts, and other powerful web tools for classrooms. California: Corwin Press.
TAP:
The topic of this article deals with the use of RSS, and how it is beneficial for classroom use. The audience for this reading includes educators who are interested in including this useful device into their classrooms, students who are required to take part in the use of RSS, and anyone in the public who is interested in learning more about RSS and what one can do with it. The purpose of this chapter is to inform the reader about RSS and its quick and easy use.
Claim:
In this chapter, Richardson claims that “this is one technology that educators should start using today, right now, this minute. And tomorrow, you should teach your students to use it” (2006). RSS gives the user the opportunity to receive more information from more sources in a short time. RSS also assures the user that the information that is received is of their interest because they are the ones who picked it.
Evidence:
This article explains in a more detailed context of what RSS is and how one can use it. RSS stands for Real Simple Syndication (2006). RSS is a feature that is used to make online searching quick and easy. Its purpose is to receive the same amount of information and/or more in a shorter period of time. RSS uses a code that is like HTML, but is known as XML (2006). This feature is the feed which lets the user subscribe to the information that they are interested in, and it keeps them from having to return time and time again. The feature known as the aggregator or feed reader lets the user know when new information on their topic of interest has been updated. When you are ready to look at your information, just go to the aggregator and the list of sites that you requested new information from will be listed. This is beneficial because it saves time from returning to the site again and again to see if any new information has been posted. RSS enables the information to come to you instead of you spending time to search for it.
The process of using RSS begins with setting up your aggregator at Bloglines.com (2006). Bloglines, just like blogs and wikis, can be used from any place that has access to the internet. Bloglines have two ways of subscribing to feeds. Your can either look at their site of most popular sites, or you can find ones on your own. To add your own, all you have to do is copy and paste your URL address. Bloglines also give you the option of getting a notifier to tell you the up-to-minute updates. RSS is beneficial for students because they can have all class content in this one area. Also, RSS can make access to the information available to parents, counselors, or anyone else interested in the work of the child (2006). RSS is a clever feature that allows searching for information to be much easier than before.
Connections:
I can connect to this article because I have experienced a “feed” on Facebook. Before this information on RSS, I never knew that the feed had a technological reason behind it. I first heard of the term RSS when reading a previous article this week. Until then, I had never heard of the term or what it meant. Facebook allows users to see what updates have been made. This allows the (nosey) people on Facebook, including myself, to see the information that is new without having to go to all of your friend’s pages to see if they have new pictures or comments. Even though, in most cases, Facebook is not always good use of time, the feed feature saves the time that is spent.
I can relate this text to the previous text that I read this week on 7 Things You Should Know About RSS. This text gave keener insight about the use of RSS. The previous article was vague, but after reading this chapter, every question I once had about RSS has now been answered.
RSS can be beneficial in the future of a professional in a way that information can be posted in any job that is new so that employees do not have to waste their time looking at information sites over and over until something new comes along. Along with student’s use, RSS can be used for professionals in the sense that information can be sent to the whole business when new projects have arrived. As a speech-language pathologist, RSS could be used to gather information from sites pertaining to speech and language. This will keep us constantly informed of new information.
