RSS stands for really simple syndication. This is a new way of getting information from the Web! Instead of visiting a web site every day to see if there are changes or updates, you can use an RSS file (called a newsfeed file) to “subscribe” to the web site.
This information was updated in September, 2008 by supervisor of instructional technology, John Hendron.
Each time a change is made to a web site, the RSS file is updated too, with what information has changed, or been added. The RSS file is small. It’s formatted in a language called XML or “eXtensible Markup Language,” and that’s why you will see on some sites an “XML” badge for newsfeed links.
On your computer you use a news-reader application. This program takes the RSS newsfeed file, and automatically checks the web site for you throughout the day. Some news-readers check every hour, some 2-3 times a day. When nothing is changed, your news-reader program just keeps quiet in the background. However when a web site you have subscribed to does change, the application alerts you that new information is available. It uses that RSS/XML file to determine if there are updates, or not.
RSS is becoming more and more popular. The reason it is so popular is because of weblogs. They’re the ultimate form of constantly-updated webpages. Each entry in a weblog is considered a “news bite.” Each new update to a blog changes the RSS feed, and new blog entries appear in your news-reader as new “bits of news.” The first place to look for RSS newsfeeds is therefore on weblogs. Check out our teacher weblogs here in Goochland.
Another great place to find news-feeds are news-related websites. These include Yahoo! News and GoogleNews. In fact, using these sites, you can subscribe to customized searches of news. If you care about a particular topic, you can stay up-to-date on what’s happening via RSS.
Look for badges and RSS symbols on your favorite web sites. These point to the files you need to subscribe to content. With millions of weblogs, and an increasing number of other sites coming online daily with RSS support, getting updates from the Web is as easy as receiving e-mail. Let the news come to you!
There are three basic ways to use an RSS newsfeed once you find one.
In today's modern browsers, including Safari for Windows and Mac OS X, Internet Explorer 7 and 8, and Firefox 2 and 3, RSS support is built-in. Check preferences for your browser or operating system for how your browser handles RSS feeds when they are followed.
Newsfeed readers are a popular way to follow a lot of websites, outside of using a web browser. NewsGator makes free, popular readers for Windows, Macintosh, and iPhone. Using these applications are as easy as using an e-mail program on your computer.
You can also track updates to your favorite web sites using web-based newsreaders (read: aggregators) which are great choices for folks who use different computers throughout the day. Once you create an account on one of these free online services, you can visit their website anytime to see what’s new from your subscriptions. We recommend:
You can also receive our news by e-mail by subscribing to RSS through a third-party service that e-mails you the content within the RSS newsfeed. To start, copy the address (URL) of the feed you wish to follow, and visit SendmeRSS. Instead of relying upon an aggregator to continuously check the feed, this service does that for you, and e-mails you updates to the address you supply.
To copy the URL of a newsfeed, use the right mouse-click functionality in your browser (or Control-click on a Mac) to choose “Copy Link” when you find a feed link.
While we can’t show you what setting up feeds will look like in every browser and with every service, we will show you next what it looks like to set up some feeds with Google Reader, a popular online news aggregator.
You will find feeds on the school websites, the front page of our county homepage, and on individual blogs. Let’s use the feed icon on our county homepage.
Right-click on the orange RSS icon, and choose “Copy Link” or similar language in your browser.
The feed URL we captured should be http://www.glnd.k12.va.us/index/site/feed.
First, visit the link for Google Reader. Once there, sign-in with your Google Account, or create one if this is your first time to any of Google’s services.
You can use Google Reader to find newsfeeds, or you can add feeds you are already aware of. Since we’ve copied the URL of a feed from the Goochland website, we’ll use the paste function in our browser to subscribe.
Click on the “Add a Subscription” link.
Paste-in our feed URL (Edit > Paste).
Click on “Add.”
Once you are subscribed, the latest news items from our site are displayed. You may notice that you can organize your feeds into folders. Use folders in Google Reader to group related feeds together. Say you have two children, and have a collection of blogs you follow for each child. You can create a folder for each child, then subscribe to each blog and “sort” the feeds into each child’s folder. On the main page in Google Reader, you can view all the feeds together by folder, instead of by individual blog/feed.
Below: the sign of success when you’ve successfully added your first feed.
It's possible now in several of our blogs to subscribe with your newsfeed to only one single category. Let's say a teacher is putting blog posts into two categories: French 1 and French 2. You can limit your subscription to just the news from the one category that corresponds to one class.
First, click on a category link on the blog of interest. I've clicked on the "Podcast" category in Mrs. Cantor's ITRT blog.
Next, go to your news reader (online or desktop-based) and add a new subscription. The format of what you put in will look like this: http://blogs.glnd.k12.va.us/teachers/bcantor/category/podcast/feed/. Use the same category name that you see when you click on one of the category links, and add the word "feed" after this name, as seen above. Once you add this customized subscription, you will only get blog posts that belong to this one feed.
This technique was requested by parents for limiting the comment they get in their readers. Thanks go out to Mrs. DiTerlizzi from GHS for pointing out this technique!
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