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Use of RSS and Social Bookmarking for Teachers and Students- Morisa & Stacy

=__ Introduction: __= RSS and Social Bookmarking are two Web 2.0 tools that can be very beneficial to teachers and students. On this page, you will find information, links, and videos to help build your understanding of these 2 topics. Also find out more information about Google Reader which helps connect these 2 different tools by clicking on this link.

=__What is RSS?__= According to wikipedia, RSS stands for "Really Simple Syndication" and is "a family of [|web feed] formats used to publish frequently updated works—such as [|blog] entries, news headlines, audio, and video—in a standardized format." RSS brings web content to the user via a RSS aggregator such as Google Reader. The user subscribes to the RSS feed of any website they are interested in and the aggregator gathers the updated information and puts it together in an organized, easy to read format. RSS feeds and aggregators allow users to check their subscriptions by accessing one website instead of each individual site you wish to follow. Below are videos and links to gather more information about RSS.

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Screencast of how RSS works: @http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w9Z_QRQ4FtM

The ABCs of RSS  by Will Richardson: http://www.techlearning.com/article/3984

=__ How can teachers use RSS? __=

Teachers can use RSS in a couple different ways in the classroom. The first way is to stay up to date with information on pedagogy as well as your subject area. By subscribing to blogs based on education and your subject area, new information will be delivered to your aggregator for you to find in one easy and efficient way. Another way to use RSS as a teacher is for managing student blogs. If you have 30 students who are completing blog projects, you can keep track of their progress by subscribing to each student blog and then go to your aggregator to find out the latest updates. Instead of going to each of those 30 blogs, the information comes to you.

=__ How can students use RSS? __=

One of the best ways for students to use RSS is for researching a project with a specific topic. They can subscribe to blogs on that topic and also subscribe to the search feed for their topic from Google Blogs Search Engine. This allows students to get up to date information from a variety of sources in a quick and efficient manner.

__References and Additional Reading:__
The Technology of Reading and Writing in the Digital Space: Why RSS is crucial for a Blogging Classroom: @http://blogsforlearning.msu.edu/articles/view.php?id=6

The Most Cake Blog: http://vtgrrlscake.blogspot.com/2007/02/

RSS Quick Start Guide by Will Richardson: @http://weblogg-ed.com/wp-content/uploads/2006/05/RSSFAQ4.pdf

RSS: The Next Killer App for Education by Mary Harrsch: http://www.wvu.edu/~itdc/resources/IT%20General/RSS.pdf

Richardson, Will, __Blogs, Wikis, Podcasts, and Other Powerful Web Tools for Classrooms__, Corwin, 2010.

=__ What is Social Bookmarking? __=

According to wikipedia, [|social bookmarking] is "a method for Internet users to organize, store, manage and search for bookmarks of resources online. Unlike file sharing, the //resources// themselves aren't shared, merely bookmarks that //reference// them." Descriptions are added to social bookmarks in the form of metadata. Descriptions can include comments, votes, or tags. The comments, votes, tags and other collaborations regarding a social bookmark are called a [|folksonomy] (as opposed to a taxonomy). Folksonomy is also called social tagging. According to Richardson, the idea is that in working with a community of researchers, new tagging systems will emerge and we therefore see how others might interpret or use the resources that we share.

In social bookmarking, users save links to web pages that they want to reference or share. Users are encouraged to organize their bookmarks with informal tags. Then, users can view bookmarks associated with a certain tag. Users are also led to other users who have bookmarked with the same tag. Web feeds can also be provided for a list of bookmarks. Two of the most popular social bookmarking sites are Delicious and Diigo.

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=__ How can teachers use Social Bookmarking? __=

One of the most convenient aspects of social bookmarking for teachers is that it is web-based. In the past, a teacher who bookmarked sites on her school computer could not see the bookmarks from home. Now, she can view them on any computer with internet access.

One way a science teacher might use social bookmarking is if he/she is teaching mitosis. If the teacher (Teacher A) comes across a great website with pictures and examples, he/she saves it to Diigo, for example. Then, Teacher A sees that 10 other teachers have saved this site. Teacher A can click on these names and find other tags for mitosis. In addition, Teacher A could subscribe to the RSS feed for another teacher's (Teacher B) mitosis tag. Then, any time Teacher B adds another site, Teacher A will be notified.

The two main conveniences for the teacher are 1) a teacher can organize his/her bookmarks by tags and 2) the teacher can see what other teachers have tagged (the social aspect).

=__ How can students use Social Bookmarking? __=

Students can subscribe to the feed of a particular tag that a teacher creates for a subject that the class is studying. This way, any time the teacher links and comments on a site that is relevant to what the students are studying, they will get the comments. Or, instruction can even be individualized for students--a teacher can insert questions or links for each individual student.

As Richardson states, "Individual student Diigo accounts are a no-brainer for their own research projects as well." Students can save and classify their sources, putt out relevant quotes, and organize their information by topics using tags.

References and Additional Reading:
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Richardson, Will, __Blogs, Wikis, Podcasts, and Other Powerful Web Tools for Classrooms__, Corwin, 2010.