About RSS

So you are flipping through websites, surfing around, and you notice this RSS button. Wonder what it is? Depending on how you obtain your definition, RSS is either Rich Site Summary or Really Simple Syndication. Either way, RSS is a format for sharing content among different websites. Sites can syndicate “feeds” (content) and Internet users can use an application called an RSS reader or aggregator to download and organize feeds such as google reader.

Why you ask? Well with soooooo much web content by sooooooo many people in soooooooo many topics, using RSS can help you organize the wealth of current information being posted to the web as I write and you read this post. There's RSS for blogs, news and current event web sites, and other web sites that update content frequently. So RSS is like getting your newspaper delivered to your door perpetually 24/7.

Here's the advantage for the classroom. Use RSS to subscribe to sites that deliver up-to-the-minute information that your students can use for assignments and discussion. Notice the RSS feed for CNN Money on this blog. I use this to make current news stories easily available for my Business Technology students. I also incorporate RSS feeds into my Moodle courses. And with Google Reader, sharing your feeds is easy.

RSS is just another example of how the web is becoming more read/write everyday.