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

“My” Googl

e Reade

r

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

“My” Googl

e Reade

r

Using RSS Personally & Professionall

y

Credits: Britt Watwood, VCU

“Using RSS Personally and Professionally”Patricia F. Anderson, U. Mich

“RSS Demystified”Perter Bromberg, SJRLC