Module 8

This module taught me about RSS feeders and what they do. A RSS feeder was a term that I had not come across. It means Rich Site Summary. A RSS feeder allows you to receive the latest blogs and news and updated websites. They get sent to you. You must first subscribe to the website, blog or news site and you must have a reader installed as well. The one recommended is Google Reader. You can get it at http://reader.google.com 
You must have a gmail account to join.
The gmail address is on the far right hand side of the screen shot below but mine has been blanked out. Your gmail address will show up there once you have joined.

 

Once you join, then you can decide what content you want to receive in your reader mailbox by subscribing to feeder sites. The feeder symbol looks like this. A feed is an information source. You can subscribe to a bundle of feeds too, based on a topic for example with news you can get BBC, CNN and other news sites. You can find a orange icon like the one below and you can add the RSS feed to a certain section of a newspaper, for example the Education section. You then add the subscription.  You can unsubscribe from feeds using the feed settings and unsubscribe. Podcasts can also be added by subscribing. I found this video very good for setting up Google Reader and understanding how to use it. http://youtu.be/9JPA4jwOjrQ.

I also discovered Google News. It's a website that you can search for the latest Google news. You can  search for a topic then put it in Google Reader. There is a RSS link there (but not an orange icon. It is just a blue link). You can add specific information to your Google Reader this way.                                   


I subscribed to Google Reader Blog as I thought that there was a lot of information that I could use to learn how to use Google Reader more effectively.


I think Google Reader is great for obtaining the latest information on a topic that you are researching and also for topics for interest. For example, I could follow a blog on dessert recipes and get the latest updated blog sent straight to my Google Reader without having to do anything but subscribe to the website using Google Reader. When I have time, I then read it.

Students can use Google Reader to obtain the latest up to date information on topics that they are researching once they subscribe to feeds from websites and blogs.

I think Google Reader is excellent for obtaining up to date information as it is constantly being updated. It also allows users to share their subscribed feeds to their friends via email.

Students can share links with each other that they have found of their favourite websites. They can also attach a message with the shared links.

By sharing the weblinks students can look at each others and look at up to date information. I would use Delicious as well to share weblinks but the difference between Google Reader and Delicious sharing weblinks is that Google Reader has the latest up to date website whereas the one that you bookmarked with Delicious may need updating if you haven't used it for a while.

I think for students to get the most out of Google Reader and keep their interest up is to have students not only subscribe to websites and feeders for their assignments in class but also for them to subscribe to websites that interest them. By using Google Reader students will familiarize themselves with its features. You can organise feeds into folders too to make them easy to find on certain topics.

I also viewed another video from a teacher on You Tube who said that he subscribes to his students blogs so that he can see when they add new information. That would be good for students if they are writing a blog during work placement. Every day the blog is updated. My Hospitality students are on work placement next week and will be writing blogs. I will keep this idea in mind for the future. At the moment, the students have a school intranet website that they can write their blogs on and I can access. However, I have to access the blogs and the blogs are not being sent to me. That is the difference with using RSS and working traditionally with accessing information. The information comes to you when you subscribe to an RSS feed and you can easily do this by each student having a blogger account.

Students can find out more about using Google Reader by searching You Tube videos as I have found them very useful in all my Web 2 courses so far. Students need to explore and obtain information from a variety of sources. The teacher can recommend an introductory You Tube video to watch but it is up to the students to find more information and features of RSS and Google Reader that they can use and take ownership of their Google Reader. Students can then use Google Reader for both leisure and work.

 

Students are life long learners and Web 2 is constantly being updated just like the RSS feeds.