Keeping up with the "Joneses" with RSS Feeds

As a professional educator, I feel it is my responsibility to be continually searching for opportunities to learn new ideas, theories, pedagogies and ways to improve my practice. This week as I focused on exploring RSS feeds I realized that they are a tool that can help me in this endeavor. .

What is RSS? Chris Harris explains it very well. “RSS, which stands for something so geeky that even geeks can't remember what it is supposed to mean, is a tool that allows you to subscribe to a site's feed. What that means is that anytime new information is published to that website, it will automatically be collected and sent to you. The RSS feed won't bug you unless there is new information, which helps you avoid overload. Even better, you access your RSS feeds through an RSS reader, which means you only have to go to a single site for all of your updates!”

As many professionals and experts in my field are creating and constantly updating websites, blogs, wikis, nings and other web 2.0 communication tools, I can use a RSS aggregator such as Pageflakes, Google Reader or Bloglines to efficiently follow their newest ideas in education. I personally use Pageflakes as my homepage as it allows me to not only follow my RSS feeds through the Reader function or on my pages, it also is a place where I can connect all my web 2.0 tools (i.e. blog, wikis, flickr, podcasts, delicious bookmarks and keep a to-do list all at one spot. I also love Pageflakes because it allows me to create more than one page. For example, I have a homepage, a personal page and a professional page. As I use my facebook account for personal use, my facebook feed is on my personal page. In terms of RSS feeds, I like the Pageflakes reader because it allows me to choose the format in which I view the feeds. I can read summaries or entire entries that have been updates. So depending on the time I have, I can switch between these functions to ensure I am able to continue to follow my RSS feeds.

Below is a screenshot of my professional Pageflakes page that includes RSS feed from my favourite sites. I have chosen a few feeds to keep on my professional page in case I do not have time in a day to get to the Reader. Also below is a screenshot of my Reader in Pageflakes which I am currently working on personalizing by selecting and adding sites I want to follow on a regular basis.

Professional Page on Pageflakes

RSS Reader Page on Pageflakes

Not only are RSS feeds a fabulous professional development tool, they can also be useful in the classroom setting for teaching and learning! Speaking of RSS feeds, Will Richardson notes they can “add to your knowledge base, help you communicate, and make your teaching better” (2009, p.77).

If your students are using blogs as learning tools, they will be able to create RSS feeds right on their blogs using widgets. They can subscribe to their classmates blogs as well as sites they are interested in, led to by their teacher or feel will assist in their learning journey.

Students who are not using blogs can use readers such as Pageflakes, Google Reader or Bloglines to manage, organize and read their RSS feeds. Teachers can choose to limit the sites in which students follow keeping their readers for school use only or allow students to completely personalize their readers for school use as well as personal use.

Whether using RSS feeds and blog aggregators for your professional development or with your students, I think it is important to develop a list of criteria for the sites that you follow. Each time you come across a site you think you may want to follow, before adding it to your RSS feeds on your reader, evaluate the site based on your criteria to ensure it is a site that is worth your time each day to read. This can be done personally, with a group of colleagues or with a class of students and ensures that you are spending your time only reading what is truly important to your goals for following sites through RSS feeds.

One of the ways I am very excited to use RSS feeds in the elementary school library setting, is by adding a link to a Reader such as Pageflakes that is set up for students, staff and parents to use as an addition to our collection! I will start by creating a Pageflakes account for my school, creating a page for students, one for staff and one for parents and add RSS feeds to each page as it would support the work and learning of each group. After the initial set up, I could teach students how to access the Pageflakes page and read the RSS feeds. To inform the staff and parents, I would hold after school information sessions individually for each group to show they how to access their Pageflakes page, read the RSS feeds, show them the potential for their students or children and teach them how to add sites they feel would benefit their group. As an extension of the physical library, this can be a school community presence on the web that would allow all members of my school community to “keep up with the Joneses” in the field of education.

References:

Harris, C. (2007). Digital reshift. School Library Journal. Retrieved Nov. 9, 2008 from http://www.schoollibraryjournal.com/blog/840000284/post/510007651.html?q=rss

Richardson, W. (2009). Blogs, Wikis, Podcasts, and Other Powerful Web Tools for Classrooms. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin Press.