rss for teaching, learning, and research

RSS For Teaching, Learning, & Research

CITES Academic Technology Services

Before RSS

Websites had to be checked individually for new content

You

Website

Website

Website

Website

RSS: Really Simple Syndication

RSS brings updated web content to you in a “feed reader”

New Website Content

New Website Content

New Website Content

Google Reader

Q: Why Google?A: Convenience (many people already have a google/gmail account)

Go to http://www.google.com/reader/ to get started

Step 1: Add Subscriptions

Two methods1. In Google Reader (GR), select

Add Subscription & enter URL2. On a website, look for RSS icons or indicators

Adjusting Settings: Folders

1. Click on Settings (Reader Settings)

2. Subscriptions tab

Change Folders New Folder

Social Features

Folders and Tags lets you make folders public or private

People you follow (main page) Sharing Settings find people with whom you can share items; set to public/private

A Few Professional Uses

• Stay updated on news in your field– Professional blogs– Get comments on your own blog– Databases of new articles for your research topic– “Share” interesting posts with people who follow

you; add your own comments w/in GR– Makes Twitter bearable for Twitter haters

A Few Pedagogical Uses

• Prepare students for “continuing education”• Reading Response: ask students to write about

a relevant blog post• Blogging Discussion Groups: students

subscribe to each others’ blogs to read & comment on them for discussion assignments

• Use students’ RSS comments to direct in-class discussion

Advanced Tweaking: Subscriptions

• Page2RSS http://page2rss.com/ Use this for Websites that don’t offer feeds (static pages, some blogs).

• ChangeDetection http://www.changedetection.com/ Similar to Page2RSS, but sends you web updates in email notifications rather than RSS.

• WizardRSS http://www.wizardrss.com/ If a blog only shows you part of the post in your feed (meaning that you have to click through to their site to read the whole message) and you would rather see the whole post within your feed, WizardRSS will convert it for you.

Advanced Tweaking: Social Media• Twitterfeed http://twitterfeed.com/ Will automatically feed your

blog posts to Twitter, Facebook, other social networks.• Twitter Search http://search.twitter.com/ Set up an RSS feed of

tweets that mention you: enter your Twitter ID (@name). Or, set up a feed for any hashtag or search term. Once you enter a search on this page, it will not only show you the relevant posts but offer to send the feed to your RSS.

• Siftlinks http://www.siftlinks.com/ monitors your Twitter feed and creates an RSS feed for links that people tweet. This would be useful if you want to get information from Twitter but prefer the RSS interface. If you have a very high-traffic feed Twitter stream with lots of links then Siftlinks may not be able to process all of them.

Advanced Tweaking: Embedding Feeds

Google AJAX Feed API http://www.google.com/uds/solutions/dynamicfeed/index.html This wizard helps you set up XML code for a dynamic feed, which you could embed onto any website (including Compass!)

Copy the code and paste into an HTML editing window.

Advanced Tweaking: Printing

• Zinepal http://www.zinepal.com/ Convert your RSS feed into a printable PDF or eReader-friendly format.

• Print to PDF in Google Reader http://joliprint.com/2010/10/07/print-to-pdf-google-reader/ Convert a single feed item to a printable PDF format by means of a browser bookmarklet (results may vary).

Additional Resources

• UIUC Library’s Current Awareness Tutorial http://www.library.illinois.edu/learn/research/current.html

• RSS in Plain English (Common Craft) http://www.commoncraft.com/rss_plain_english

• Ultimate RSS Toolbox (Mashable) http://mashable.com/2007/06/11/rss-toolbox/ Offers an extensive list of RSS readers for different operating systems. If Google Reader isn’t your style, you will find plenty more to choose from -- as well as tips and tools -- on this site.

About the Presenter

Anne McKinneyCITES Academic Technology Services (CATS)University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign(217) 244-8642amckinn@illinois.edu http://www.google.com/profiles/annemckinn http://twitter.com/amckinn