A while back my friend Jordan showed me the wonder that is Google Reader. Before then I was using Mac Mail for my RSS needs and often found myself frustrated with its limitations. Within the past six months I have subscribed to various different blogs/ news sources each dealing with their own theme. I am now able to categorize all my feeds into various interests (Theology, History, Educational Tech, ect.) I love it and Google Reader is a great platform to access all my news and interest from one easy spot.
Although RSS has been around for a relatively long time, there are still some underutilized applications for the classroom
1. Resources
Students could use the RSS feed as a one stop shop for various resources within the classroom. Within the sphere of history, students could access various daily primary source document feeds or trusted history sites to aid them in projects or activities.
2. Posting and Assessing Student Work
Another possibility for RSS utilization is similar to what we are currently doing in this class. Students can create their own blogs where they post their assignments so it can be critiqued/ peer-reviewed by other students. Having a class feed would bring all that information under one easy to view stream. This would be a cheaper, efficient, and more familiar way for students to post their work online as opposed to the plethora of other education-based sharing sites (e.g. Blackboard).
For a fuller idea of what feeds could look like in the classroom check out Dairik Baird's article on RSS and Education, its a bit old, but there are some practical tips for those unfamiliar with the topic.
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