Using RSS Readers in Education:
The Google Reader
Introductions
• What do you teach?
• Do you use RSS now?
Who Here Reads
Newspapers?
News Story Syndication
Story is written
Story is
sent to
“the w
ire”Papers pick up
‘feed’ off the
wire
Story appears here
Syndication
Syndication
Appears in many papers
RSS is like reading newspaper• Lots of newspapers!
What is RSS?
RSS stands for Really Simple Syndication
From “Push” to “Pull”
RSS in Plain English
http://snipurl.com/1w8wi
Types of Information RSS Can Bring to You
• News Headlines• News Search Results• Organizational News
& Updates• Clinical Guidelines• Grant Opportunities • Journal Table of
Contents • Web Searches
• Web 2.0– Blogs– Blog Search
Results– Del.icio.us– Flickr Groups– Wikis– Youtube– more …
Examples of RSS Feeds: NIH Grants
Examples of RSS Feeds: Blogs
Examples of RSS Feeds: Pubmed Search
Google Reader• http://www.google.com/reader
Google Reader
• Sign in with free account
RSS Feed: Subscribing• 1. Find a feed.• 2. Find the RSS link .• 3. Copy the URL or link.• 4. Go to Google Reader.• 5. Click on Add Subscription.• 6. Paste in the link. • 7. Organize the new feed into
your folders or subject structure.
Subscribing• Some pages offer
buttons you can just click on to add a feed.
• This allows you to skip steps 2-6!
Step 1 (Find Webpage) • Google News Search
Step 2 (Find RSS Link)
Step 3 (Copy Link)
or
This skips steps 4-6
Step 4 (Go to Reader)
Step 5 (Add Feed)• Click on Add
subscription• This expands
to give you space to paste the URL.
Step 6 (Paste Link)• Paste the URL in the box,
then click ADD.
Step 7 (Sort Feed)The feed might look like this
Manage subscriptions allow you to group feeds
Step 7 (Sort Feed)• Choose a topic folder or create a
new folder.• TIP: When you view a folder, you
see the newest items for the topic all integrated together.
Other Neat Things to Do With RSS
• Environmental scanning and market research
• Get weather reports, daily cartoons, sports scores …
• Feed from social bookmarking sites like http://del.icio.us
• Get trends on your feeds– Items per day– Your reading trends
Using RSS Personally & Professionall
y
Credits: Britt Watwood, VCU
“Using RSS Personally and Professionally”Patricia F. Anderson, U. Mich
“RSS Demystified”Perter Bromberg, SJRLC
