by Nicole McClure



Illustration by Matt Forsythe

The nature of the internet has changed drastically over the past few years. Websites no longer feature static information or material that remains unchanged for long periods of time. Instead, information is changed, edited, added and deleted on a regular basis. While this type of website used to be reserved for daily newspapers, the emergence of blogs, social networking, bookmarking and annotation sites and collaborative editing projects circulate changing information every second of the day. As many users participate in the changes, just as many are taking that information in. RSS serves to bring that information to the user in an organized and efficient manner.

RSS is an acronym for "Really Simple Syndication." In technical terms, RSS is an XML-based format for delivering content (See RSS Specifications). RSS delivers web-based content on a regular basis, thereby providing updates as frequently as they are created. According to Software Garden, RSS has become popular with people who are interested in multiple websites as a way to avoid having to constantly check for new content. As the sites change, the updated versions are delivered right to a user via an RSS aggregator. As information is updated or changed on a site, simple formatted notices appear in a reader to alert the user of the change. The information is delivered to the user rather than the user tracking down the information.

There are numerous aggregators available for free, each offering unique features that can be customized according to the user's tastes. Google Reader, NewsGator, eSobi, and Snarfer are all examples of RSS feed aggregators. Each one has different features that allow you to sort by feed or date, mark updates for and quickly sort through multiple feeds. This technology has become quite useful in navigating through an ever-changing web of information. RSS readers manage and organization information in a central location making the large amounts of information less intimidating and overwhelming.

While many use RSS feeds for casual reading, the technology has multiple pedagogical uses as well. Organizing research is much more efficient when using RSS. Social bookmarking sites such as Diigo and del.ici.ous offer RSS feeds to post alerts of relevant links and information that may have been targeted for research. This can be helpful for individuals, but also for groups working on the same topic. As one user finds information, all group members who subscribe to the feed will be alerted. Collaborative network sites often offer feeds as well, making it easy to notify site members of changes and updates. This is helpful when using course blogs, discussion forums and other forms of collaborative input, especially when working with large groups. Rather than checking each individual site each day, the updates will all appear in a central location. Likely the most popular feeds come from blogs and news sites, however iTunes and YouTube offer media aggregator feeds to alert you of new videos , podcasts and other media posted by your favorite contributors.

This may be useful in an educational setting when asking students to seek out authentic materials. For instance, if you are teaching a writing class, you might ask students to follow at least one or two blogs that model good writing. They could add these blogs to their RSS reader as well as a feed from their own class blog. Another example may be to have language students subscribe to a feed of podcasts or videos in the target language. The BBC website offers a RSS service for each different language that they publish the news in, for example the Arabic news feed. The students can then use the news feed to keep track of the news in the region that their target language is used in. Most importantly, RSS technology allows educators and students to harness the numbers of other Web 2.0 tools, providing efficiency and organization to its users.

For a great and brief intro to RSS, check Lee and Sachi Lefever's video "RSS in Plain English" featured on the Common Craft Show.