RSS Feeds

I've known about RSS feeds for probably five years, if not more. I tried subscribing to a few a couple of times, but I rarely read them and never really saw much reason for them. I just didn't get the point. I think I was searching for feeds just to be taking part in something. I wasn't really grasping the idea.

Now, nearly a month after my spring classes have ended, I would consider myself somewhat addicted to my RSS feeds. One of the assignments we had for my Teaching and Learning in a Digital Environment (TLDE) class was to check out a few blogs in our field. I found a few that were okay, but others in my class suggested a couple others that I found more interesting. In the process, though, something really cool happened. One of my two instructors pointed out the Reader feature offered by Google. Once you've got an account with Google, you can do a ton of different things, and one of those things is consolidating all the RSS feeds you subscribe to in one Reader. (Basically, just one location where you can read any updates on a daily basis--it's kind of like you create your own online newspaper, with 'articles' focusing on things you're interested in.)

For example, I've got a few different headings on my Reader setup: Cooking, Library, Family and Friends, and Spiritual. I have a number of blogs I follow or subscribe to, and I've got them organized into those different categories. The Reader automatically files the updates for me under the categories I've specified. I also follow a few other sites that don't go under any of those headings, but that also give regular updates (there's a Dilbert Daily Comic Strip, The Urban Dictionary's Word of the Day, and my daughter's middle school puts out a daily bulletin, to name a few).

RSS stands for Really Simple Syndication.  (If you notice, I have embedded a link into the "RSS" at the beginning of this paragraph. Click on that link to head to a Wikipedia definition and history of RSS feeds.) Many sites have daily or periodic updates that you can follow. In the top of your screen, on the right side of your browser line, if you see the symbol below, you can follow those updates just by clicking on that icon.

 

I wouldn't say that I read every single update every single day, but I do try to follow some of my updates pretty regularly. It's such a neat feature, I can't get enough of it! Google Reader is not, by far, the only way to subscribe to and/or consolidate your RSS feeds. It's one of probably hundreds, at least. However, when I was first subscribing to feeds, I didn't access them very frequently at all. I've found that the Google Reader is extremely user friendly, and I've got it saved as one of my home pages, so I can go there at the beginning of the day every day without any trouble at all. I just click on the "home" icon on my browser, and my Reader opens with all the latest updates.

If you aren't subscribing to any RSS feeds, I'd suggest you check it out. It's super cool! And if you ARE following some good feeds, feel free to message me about them. Thanks!

**Note: It seems that the RSS symbol or icon is no longer showing up in the browser line on either Internet Explorer or Firefox (I don't know about other browsers); but if you're looking at a site that has regular updates, most authors want you to have the ability to subscribe to those updates and they make that icon available as a hot link somewhere on their page. Look for that orange symbol I installed above.**