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RSS:  Is it Really (that) Simple?

I approached the topic of learning about RSS with a curious sense of expectancy.  I had noticed the orange symbol countless times in the past, but was something that I had continued to put off on fully exploring.  My personal ability and enjoyment of surfing the web had not seemed limited by not knowing much about RSS, and from the little I did know, I hesitated because the word “subscribe” was involved.  Not wanting to be inundated with unwanted information that could be seen as spam or junk mail, I simply chose not to explore RSS.  However, when I saw that learning and actively using RSS was a part of this course, I thought it was a good opportunity to finally take a fresh look at the technology.

I was surprised by what I discovered, and found myself subscribing to a wide variety of feeds, including politics, music technology, the blogs of friends, and of course, educational technology.  I think what has attracted me most to the technology is the ease at which it was possible to access new information, and that the specific content of the information could be narrowly construed to eliminate information on topics about which I had little interest.  In addition, I found myself perusing the various search results, focusing on two items: the number of posts per week, and the number of subscribers.

I can already see myself using RSS several ways professionally.  At the cyber charter school where I work, we are always looking for ways to enhance online learning while also being responsible with the funding that we have, so I was pleased to see a feed which will keep me abreast of the newest free resources that are available.  In my capacity as a music teacher, I was delighted to find a site which will inform me of upcoming new music resources, music software updates, and much more.  I am looking forward to being able to quickly scan the collection of feeds for information of interest, and being able to quickly share that information with my students when appropriate.

Click here for the link to my RSS feed bundle, which contains some great resources related to educational technology!

The AECT Standard 4.4: Information Management states that “Information management involves planning, monitoring, and controlling the storage, transfer, or processing of information in order to provide resources for learning.”  The RSS feeds Assignment aligns with this standard in that RSS technology enables the user to manage, control, and share information in an effective manner to facilitate learning.