RSS+Feeds

What is an RSS Feed and how can might we find this useful?
RSS stands for "Really Simple Syndication" and is a tool to use to keep updated on changes to pages that you subscribe to. Once you subscribe to a feed, the tool automatically checks for new information, allowing you to keep track of changes to multiple websites without the tedious task of checking all of them for a new post. The updated information can be posted to your website, wiki, blog, emailed to you, viewed within iTunes or RSS aggregator programs, which are essentially web browsers built to only view RSS feeds.

**Here are some common uses for RSS Feeds:** >
 * Subscribe to websites which offer new information each day to automatically update on your website or wiki for your viewers.
 * Prevent yourself from visiting each website you want to read, instead have RSS feeds update you with new content from one place.
 * The most common feeds to subscribe to are news websites, wikis, blogs.
 * Notify your viewers of the arrival of new products from a store.
 * Become updated of new posts to a wiki, or new members to a group.
 * Display up-to-date weather reports.
 * Visit iTunes RSS generator to choose from several university level class podcasts on iTunesU.
 * Music, ebooks, audio books, movies and other media can be generated in your RSS feeds list.
 * Here is a great place to start looking for useful content: []

How to create a Live Bookmark:
Subscribing to an RSS feed is easy. Let's start by making a Live Bookmark. Usually, this is an automated process in web browsers to subscribe. For example, let's suppose that CNN's technology feed is useful to your Online Textbook. Go to http://www.cnn.com/TECH/index.html and find the RSS Feed icon, then click on it.

If there are more than one feeds to choose from, choose one, then you can come back and add the other(s).

**Adding a Live Bookmark** I like to add the Live bookmarks to the Bookmarks Toolbar Folder, which appears underneath the navigation toolbar, so I can have a quick look at recent events with just one mouse click.

Manually subscribing to an RSS feed:
If a site has an RSS feed, but the orange icon doesn't show up, you can add the feed manually. Select "New Live Bookmark..." in the Bookmarks Manager and enter the URL and other information of the feed.

How to get the RSS Feed on your Wiki Online Textbook:
To add an RSS Feed to your Online Textbook on Wikipages, click on the Widget button on the top and select RSS Feed. Paste the address to the subscription you wish to add (i.e. http://rss.cnn.com/rss/cnn_tech.rss). Below is the CNN tech feed that I added..

rss url="http://rss.cnn.com/rss/cnn_tech.rss" link="true" description="true" length="7" number="3" date="true" author="true" enclosure="true"

Also on your Wikispaces page, you can click on the Notify Me tab in the top right when you are in Edit Mode. Enter your email address and select the type of RSS feed information you want to receive (All Changes, Page Edits Only, Discussions Only, File Changes Only). This can alert you quickly to all updates when working with groups and show you exactly what information has been added or changed

Your Tasks:
1. Find an appropriate RSS Feed and add it to your Online Textbook. 2. Click on the link below to open up a shared Google Doc. Then add a paragraph explaining what you learned during this lesson and how you might implement this RSS Feed tool into your classroom. Give at least one specific example as to how you might use the tool. If you do not have a Google e-mail account you will have to create one in order to access the document. **Please include your name at the end of your paragraph.**

Here is the link for the class Google Doc: [].