RSS Feeds and You, The Teacher! A Guide to Using RSS Feeds in the Classroom What is RSS? RSS, also known as Really Simple Syndication, is a sort of behind-the-scenes code that a website generates so users can “subscribe” to “feeds.” That is, users can be up-to-date on anything new being posted by the authors of a website. Using a Reader In order to get RSS feeds from websites automatically, you need to first sign up for an RSS feed reader. This tool will allow you to not only subscribe to a feed, but you can view the feed in the reader without actually going to the website. Google Reader is a very popular example of this. Using RSS This is the easy part! Whenever you’re on a website, click the orange (or other color) RSS icon like the one below. Then you’re subscribed to the site’s feeds, and you can view them in your new RSS reader! RSS For Teachers RSS Feeds can come from any site, including educational sites and blogs. Many blogs are out there for a teacher to explore; many teachers already keep up blogs of other teachers who share their lessons and findings from the classroom. Now you can subscribe to these! RSS For Students If you’re using weblogs with students, you can subscribe to each of your students’ blogs and have your aggregator collect everyone’s updates rather than sifting through 20 to 25 blogs a day. It definitely saves time! Parents and counselors can practice this as well. Also, if there is a feed of yours that you want students to see, you can import an RSS feed into your blog for students to easily view. Even without blogs, getting students an RSS feed reader can allow them to keep up on news and other sources in case they need them for projects in or out of your class. Contributors Images from: “Sven’s Life from Oz.” Photo. 9 Dec 2010. http://svensguide.com/?page_id=100 Webb, Chris. “The Awesomeness of Google Reader.” Photo. 13 Oct 2010. 9 Dec 2010. <http://chriswebseo.livejournal.com/tag/seo%20expert>.