Linsey Cushing
September 12, 2007
Richardson, W. (2006). Blogs, wikis, podcasts, and other powerful web tools for classrooms. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin Press.
TAP:
This chapter discusses RSS basics and is geared toward educators. The purpose of the chapter is to inform the reader about RSS, describe how to download and access RSS, and persuade the reader to use RSS.
Claim:
Because of the ever-expanding amount of information that is available on the Web, organization can be overwhelming at times. However, RSS is the solution to this problem. As the title of the chapter quotes, RSS is “The New Killer App for Educators” (Richardson 2006). RSS is a necessary addition for every educator and student because it allows the user to log onto the RSS aggregator and view which Web sites, Weblogs, wikis, etc. have been recently updated instead of having to search each individual site. RSS saves time for the user while also improving critical thinking skills.
Evidence:
RSS, or Real Simple Syndication, allows the user to set up an aggregator, which does the searching for you and sets up the RSS feeds. Then the user selects which Web sites, blogs, wikis, search engine topics, or newsgroups are of interest and adds these to the RSS feed. Finally, the user fine tunes the RSS feed by choosing whether others can see what he or she subscribes to, how often the aggregator should check for updates, and how long the information should be saved. When the user goes back to the RSS feed, he or she will see that the Web sites that are updated are highlighted. This way, the user does not waste time going from site to site but instead has all the updates available on one. The user must learn to glance at the new information and determine whether it is valid, useful information or simply something that came up and is useless to the user. This aspect of RSS is particularly useful in the classroom because it can help improve students’ critical thinking skills and judgment. RSS is also very beneficial to teachers because it allows them to create an RSS feed for the students’ blogs. When researching, RSS is useful because you can use search engines such as Google to search for a particular topic and have the aggregator add any updates to Web sites about the topic or add any new Web sites created about the topic. The same can be done for news searches such as Google News and Yahoo News. As Richardson concluded the chapter, he said this: “RSS is a powerful, flexible tool that…will be changing our information gathering habits for years to come. If you don’t try any other tool, … you simply have to start using RSS” (2006).
Connections:
Before taking CD 315, I had never heard of RSS. When I first started reading about it, I was somewhat confused. However, this chapter really clarified how beneficial RSS can be if I look at the updates on a daily basis and teach myself to differentiate between useful information and updates that just need to be deleted. I am amazed at all the different sources that can be added to an RSS feed. I was really surprised that even a Google topic search can be added to the aggregator instead of a true Web site. I am planning on using an RSS feed in the future for my research project and I am excited to see where it leads me. I can definitely see RSS being commonplace in the near future because it saves you time while also organizing information. This reading directly relates to the article I read a day ago, 7 Things You Should Know About RSS. However, this put the basic information from that article into perspective while actually giving me Web sites I can use and directions on how to create the necessary information. As I have said in previous connections, this is yet another addition to the Read/Write Web that will bring users together while also saving time and energy. This information about RSS will be very useful in my career as a speech-language pathologist because I can add Web sites such as ASHA to my RSS feed so I can be updated on new information while also adding general topics concerning my specific area of study to be updated on. If my clients have blogs at school or home, I could even add those to my RSS feed to keep up with their daily lives outside of the clinical atmosphere.
