Tip:
Highlight text to annotate it
X
Hello this is Kim Smith, and today I am going to be sharing some information with you
about
RSS feeds. First, I will provide you with a brief overview
RSS feeds, and what they are. Then I will demonstrate for you how to start your
own
RSS feed using a feed reader. And, finally I'll share an example of how I will use
RSS feeds in my own classroom. Okay.
Let's begin with the basics. What is RSS?
RSS stands for Really Simple Syndication.
This is a format that allows web sites, such as news sites and blogs,
to push out new content from their site in the form of a feed.
People who wish to receive a site's content subscribe to the feed
through an RSS feed reader. RSS feed readers allow users to receive
updated content to multiple web sites in one centralized location.
This is a convenient way for people to stay informed about topics of importance
to them,
without having to visit each website individually.
Now let's talk about how to get started using
RSS. The first thing you have to do is decide which feed reader you're going to
use.
There are a wide variety of feed readers available,
performing a Google search will provide you with many options.
But, for the purpose of this video I'm going to use a reader called
Feedly. To access Feedly, I'm going to type feedly.com
into my address bar. If this is your first time on Feedly,
you'll be prompted to register for a free account. But because I have already
registered
I was logged in automatically. So this is my main Feedly page.
You can see on the menu on the left side of the screen
that I've already subscribed to a number feeds,
and have organized them into categories.
The majority of my screen shows the content that's been pushed out to my feed
by the sites you see in the menu.
If I click on one of the feeds, it will show
all of the recent content sent by that particular site.
I can change the layout of my page by clicking the icons at the top.
Here we have list view where you see the titles only.
We have magazine view, where it's going to show
a small picture and the beginning of the articles.
And then we have the cards view which is the view that I actually prefer to
use.
These three icons right here I can also mark
that I have read this particular feed, I can change the layout
options for the feed, and I can refresh the feed as well.
I can add new sites to my list
of feeds by clicking the "Add Content" link above
my menu bar. This prompts me to enter a URL,
title, or topic to search for in the box below.
I've created a blog site for my class using KidBlog,
and I want at the feed from that site to my Feedly reader
so that the content my students post is all delivered to one place.
So, I'm going to click on the tab that I've already
opened for the blog, and in the upper right corner you can see this
RSS box. I'm going to go ahead and click on it,
and it takes me to a page that allows me to subscribe to this blog.
Oftentimes on web sites, links to RSS feed information
are indicated by this orange icon that you see here,
so be aware of that. This drop-down menu over here
gives me the option of a few feed readers that other people may
use, but I don't see Feedly here. So instead
I'm going to go up to the address bar and I am going
to copy the URL, and I'm going to come back into my Feedly window and I'm
going to paste it
into the search box. And once I hit "Enter"
you will see that I have one search result.
I'll go ahead and click on it and you can see
that it takes me to the feed from my students blogs. I'm going to click on
"Add to my Feedly", and over on the left
I'm going to leave the title as is. But I want to create a new category for this
site so that it will be
easy to find. I'm going to go ahead and call it "Student
Blogs", and then I'm going to click
"Add" down at the bottom.
If I go back to My Feedly, I can see the new category
with new link all the way down here.
Now I'm going to show you how I plan to use RSS feeds with my third-grade class.
I've created a separate Feedly account that has a collection
of feeds from kid-friendly sites. You can see here in the menu
that I've categorized them into each subject area to make it easier for
students to choose
which feed they would like to read. I will be asking my students to choose an
article to read,
and then they will respond to or summarize what they've read
using their blog that I showed you in the previous segment.
They will then be able to read and respond to the posts of their peers
and because I subscribed to the class blog using my Feedly
account that you can see here, I will be able to read and respond to my students
posts as well.
This concludes my video on RSS feeds.
I hope you found it to be informative. If you have any questions or comments for
me,
please leave a comment my learning log. Thanks for viewing!