One of the most significant innovations on the new Read/Write web is the advent of the RSS feed. What is an RSS feed? RSS is commonly defined as Really Simple Syndication. Basically what an RSS feed allows you to do is subscribe to various websites so you can have updated information sent directly to you. This may sound confusing, so I’ll try to make it easier.

Before RSS, people had to individually visit websites to see if any new information had been posted. This was very time consuming, especially when half of your time was spent visiting websites that had not been updated since your last visit. In the era of blogs and online news sites, new content is always being added to websites. Wouldn’t it be great if you could subscribe to your favorite websites and visit one place that tells you when any new content has been added? That’s exactly what RSS does.

I use a website called bloglines that lists all of my RSS subscriptions. With one click of the mouse I can see which of my subscriptions have new content, so I don’t waste time visiting unaltered sites. Once you get the hang of RSS feeds, you wouldn’t know how you lived without them. I check my bloglines everyday. I subscribe to blogs about education, news, my friends and even some of my favorite tv shows.

In the classroom, students can subscribe to blogs based on current study topics. They can stay informed on current events and keep in touch with other students, teachers and family members. Teachers can connect with other educators around the world by subscribing to their blogs. Many professional associations have RSS feeds. Subscriptions are always free and are super easy to manage once you’ve set up an aggregator to organize them (such as bloglines or Google Reader). Not every website allows for RSS subscriptions, but most of them do if they are updated frequently. Learn to recognize the RSS logo (the orange box below) and begin organizing your Internet.

A really helpful site to get you started can be found at the Infinite Thinking Machine.

RSS logo