Welcome Some of the objectives of this presentation include explaining what RSS (Real Simple Syndication) is, why you would want to use it and some examples. We will show you exactly how to get your RSS- or your syndicated material- up onto Blackboard. Goal is to show you a way to save time and also learn about something that may interest you personally, professionally too. 04/19/10
Our students have grown up with technology 04/19/10
You will all be able to do this!!! 04/19/10
It is private and does not give any information about you. Allows redistribution of information Teachers often ask me "how do you find these new things?" or "how did you know about this?" Much of the time I don't have to find or even look for innovative new things, because the news comes to me... and not because anyone is sending it to me, but because I'm using a tool called RSS, or Really Simple Syndication. 04/19/10
RSS has many names that you may see, but they all refer to the same thing. With RSS you subscribe, just like to a magazine. As you know, when you subscribe to a magazine, it is delivered right to your door. Now, instead of a postman delivering the news after the news is old, you can get the news as it is happening. The only thing is that the content is from all over the web! But, you can also publish a feed of your important information. By subscribing to certain news services or website you will get updates ONLY when there are changes. Thus, if no change or no new news, you will not get any information. 04/19/10
RSS is the republished article. Just as TV shows go into syndication by other channels, the RSS feed news does the same thing. The news can be published elsewhere so that you can get it- and get it fast! 04/19/10
Here are examples of websites that you can get an RSS feed from. This is also important as it is a great tool for you and your students to use. You only need to type the information one time. No more copy and paste over and over! 04/19/10
Feed readers are the tools that collect the feeds for you to review at your own time. 04/19/10
This will not take more than a short time. It will pay off for you to get this set up. Gmail account in order to get a blog on Google Other choices: Wordpress and LiveJournal are both popular and free examples of blog Here is a step by step tutorial for starting a Google blog: http://weblogs.about.com/od/creatingablog/ss/BloggerTutorial.htm 04/19/10
People can subscribe to your blog by email or use their favorite RSS reader. http://www.allbusiness.com/marketing-advertising/internet-marketing/3871418-1.html FeedBurner Tutorial FeedBurner Help: http://www.google.com/support/feedburner/bin/answer.py?answer=78465&cbid=-j0qpxfnkk8p&src=cb&lev=answer Use your site name in place of the following text: RSS 2.0: http:// blogname .blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default?alt=rss Add feeds/posts/default?alt=rss at the end of your blog’s home page This will give you your feed so you can set it up in a reader 04/19/10
When you set it up, you are given choices of templates and widgets. I recommend you just do the basics if this is your first time. If you are more comfortable with the web, add more tools. Students and other people may wish to syndicate your blog, or they may wish to add you to their blog reader- this is good if your students subscribe, but they do not have to Providing an easy accessible RSS URL on your blog will increase the chance that other people will follow your blog. 04/19/10
FeedWind is a RSS feed widget. Simply copy & paste the snippet of code to embed into your web page. It's free and ready to use without having to register! You can have the feed appear as you want. This code that you will embed goes into the announcement box A widget is a stand-alone application that can be embedded into third party sites by any user on a page where they have rights of authorship (eg. a webpage, blog, or profile on a social media site) Set up parameters: embed code I will show what I did, it depends on what you want and if you are going to do what I did. There are many widget sites that will do the same thing but will look different 04/19/10
The blue bar is the name of my blog. Each bold font is an update that I put on my blog. They click on this and it opens the blog Where you embed this depends on: The Course Management System used What the school allows faculty to do Some schools only allow you to use some sections for communication Other schools allow you to do much more I work for 2 different schools and each one has different criteria What you need is an area that allows you to post HTML (if you do not know, ask your support person) 04/19/10
This service allows you to call via your phone and leave messages. Dial2Do is a phone service that lets you get things done just by phoning a number and saying what you want done. You can call Dial2Do and say "email" to send an email, "text" to send a text message, "reminder" to ... well you get the idea. It is Free! 04/19/10
Twitter: http://twitter.com/ This also has an RSS feed that you can set up in eCollege. It allows phone calls to it also- plus there is a lot of software available. 04/19/10
If yout see something you want on another website you may see one of these buttons. You may even have this on your browser bar. If so, you can click on it and post to Blogger. It will allow you to select which blog and what you want to post. Excellent option for when you are traveling the web and find something you know worthwhile for the students. 04/19/10
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Google Alerts are email updates of the latest relevant Google results (web, news, etc.) based on your choice of query or topic. Some handy uses of Google Alerts include :monitoring a developing news story keeping current on a competitor or industry getting the latest on a celebrity or event keeping tabs on your favorite sports teams 04/19/10
Some other ideas 04/19/10
If you use the addthis or other addons in websites of interest, you can add them to the blog for the students. There is more!!!! The blog records all of the communication and has a history of your communication There is repeating information each term. You email students the important information. It may be in your announcements- but the student can not remember which one. He can email you, you hunt down the information and email back or you tell them, it is in the blog!!!!! 04/19/10
If you visit several websites or blogs for information, using RSS will save you time by viewing updates in one location, rather than visiting each site individually. You can have the RSS updates sent to your email if you wish. You will easily access the original blog post, article, or news item: each item in the newsreader that you use links directly to that item on the source website. Free your email inbox from notifications and newsletters; with RSS feeds you view only the items that you choose to view, when it's convenient for you. 04/19/10
RSS-based search engines can be quite useful; their big advantage is that they index individual items rather than pages which may contain many items. There are several good general-purpose RSS-based search engines around today; they are available on Fagan Finder on the Weblogs, Journals, and RSS page. 04/19/10