Week 4 #6 RSS

Week 4 #6 Learn about RSS feeds and set up a blog reader account
You’ve heard of RSS?
RSS stands for “Really Simple Syndication” and is a file format for delivering regularly updated information over the web. Just think about the websites and news information sources you visit everyday. It takes time to visit those sites and scour the ad-filled and image-heavy pages for just the text you want to read, doesn’t it? Read more about RSS here or see this video at BlipTV.Now imagine if you could visit all those information sources and web pages in just one place and all at the same time … without being bombarded with advertising… without having to search for new information on the page you’d already seen or read before… and without having to consume a lot of time visiting each site individually. Would that be valuable to you? Well, it’s available now through a newsreader and RSS. This week’s discovery exercises focus on learning about RSS news feeds and what free tools you can use to do this.Discovery Exercise:1. Follow these discovery exercises to set up your own, personalized RSS feed reader. Learn about the difference between RSS feed readers, Bloglines, and Google Reader. Click here for Bloglines or here for Google Reader2. Create a free "RSS aggregator" account from either Bloglines or Google Reader and subscribe to at least 2 newsfeeds to your reader.

1.BLOGLINES. Here are the steps for creating an account in BLOGLINES. See Using Bloglines Tutorial steps 1-3 for instructions. See also a short video on YouTube on how to add feeds ;

2.GOOGLE READER. You may prefer to set up an RSS aggregator in Google Reader. Tutorials include: Google Reader Tour, video tutorial#1 or #2.]

3. Create a post in your blog about this exercise. Don’t know what to blog about? Think about these questions: What do you like about RSS and newsreaders? How do you think you might be able to use this technology in your school or personal life? How can libraries use RSS or take advantage of this new technology? Optional: If you're up to the challenge, you can provide the URL address to your public bloglines account (find where to find this below)

4. Add a comment under this blog entry on HNLibrary.blogspot.com including the name of you blog and anything else about RSS.